PWA, also known as Progressive Web Application, is a relatively new concept and approach into enhancing user experience and performance with web applications. While the objective for PWA is to reuse code to provide a mobile experience, they are becoming the next biggest thing due to reliability, speed, and functionality. Consequently, mobile phones are now leading source of internet traffic while desktop usage has grown far inferior in comparison. Thus PWA could potentially inspire a new generation of web applications in a different light.
What are PWA?
In short, PWA is a website that looks and behaves as if it is a mobile application. They are built to take advantage of mobile features without the hassle of installation and deployment through an app store. However, they could be installed to a device like a native app, if desired. The PWA concept allows for user engagement to content, simple usability and more importantly, converse improvement.
What are the Advantages of PWA?
The important question to ask is why build a PWA in the first place? You are probably questioning, “is PWA a responsive design?” The answer is, well, no. While responsive web design is the rendering and layout of a website based on screen size, platform and orientation. PWA includes more features than a standard responsive web design and, in fact, utilizes responsiveness for it to work. The benefit of PWA, like mentioned above, is that a PWA website allows users to interact with it as a dedicated application but with the full functionality of a website and minus the installation/deployment hassle. In addition, they are cheaper to develop than native apps and have significantly less competition. In comparison with non-PWAs and traditional mobile sites, they actually are significantly faster. 10% of users will leave a page for every second that they have to wait for a site to load. 53% of mobile sites were abandoned if a page took longer than 3 seconds to load. Thus, running a slow mobile site essentially translates to losing potential users and clients. Moreover, PWAs are reliable and engaging. Once launched, it can run even with an unstable or in absence of an internet connection. Not to mention, they are secure because all PWAs must utilize the HTTPS protocol. Lastly, PWAs can run on almost all modern mobile device, therefore minimizing considerations needed for adaptability and compatibility issues.
If you’re interested in learning more about PWAs and how KIMBO Design can help bring your vision to life, please feel free to get in touch with us here or visit Google’s PWA CheckList for details.
