The Ultimate Guide to Real-time Web Development

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The internet has significantly evolved over the past few decades, and so have the user needs. Information exchange has become simpler, faster, and more real-time, having a transformative impact on users. As a result, traditional web applications are gradually being replaced by real-time web applications.

Why? Because these applications offer real-time functionality, enabling two-way communication. They communicate with the server within specific time frames while facilitating users to perform a wide array of transactional activities.

From sharing information over social media to shopping online, real-time applications dominate the internet, offering users a perfect balance between functionality, information, and interactivity, ultimately increasing their engagement as well as enhancing their experience.

Therefore, companies presently are more focused on putting a real-time user experience at the core of their products. But how to ensure satisfactory results?

 

 Let’s look at real-time web app development in detail.

 

Real-Time Web App Development

Real-Time Web Application Development is not the same as standard web development. It is because, in the case of standard web development, companies develop separate applications for various platforms or, at best, cross-platform hybrid applications, which have limited functionality and can be costly.

On the contrary, real-time web applications offer extended capabilities and compatibility across various platforms and have a much higher reach than traditional applications.

Below appended are a couple of things to consider when developing your real-time application.

 

User Interface & User Experience (UI & UX)

First, since the core concept behind real-time web applications is to facilitate direct communication between the users and your services, you need to develop an intuitive UI and UX interface. So, the best way to offer optimal products and services is to anticipate the customer’s journey.

 

It is imperative that the information architecture is well-designed and complements the applications’ product and screen layouts, given the level of engagement these applications require.

 

Being a developer, what you will need to do here is to identify your target audience and have a clear understanding of how they intend to use the application. You must be detailed in your approach and pay close attention to button placements, page layouts, and navigational patterns.

 

Moreover, to ensure that the information exchange is seamless, you must establish the proper visual and information hierarchies while selecting appropriate color schemes and typography that will ultimately increase user engagement.

 

Organized Navigation Structure

Secondly, considering that real-time web applications tend to be vertically longer, the navigation structure assumes great significance. Scrolling over pages yields better results in the long run since users don’t have the patience to wait for the page to load every time they click.

 

Therefore, continuous scrolling provides better usability because users don’t have to wait long enough for the page to load. So, being a developer, your best option is to stay organized when it comes to navigation structure.

 

Speed and Performance

When talking about how irritating it can be for users to wait for pages to load, let’s not forget that speed and performance also play quite an important role here, in addition to navigation structure.

Studies indicate that a delay of even a second could cost businesses millions of dollars that otherwise are doing great in their daily sales. So, the incorporated technology should be capable of manipulating large data sets in real time while reducing server loads.

Being a developer, you should adopt technologies that offer ad-hoc data manipulations, fast iterations, and allow distributed computing so that the application remains stable and performs logically well when the demand exceeds thousands of queries.

Moreover, it is also necessary for the applications to allocate traffic intelligently between multiple servers. Why? Because the primary application server can effectively serve the application’s main page dynamic contents.

 

Scalability

Furthermore, developers must ensure that the programming language they use to develop the web application can support scalability on a larger scale. It is because there are no limits on the number of users that can land on the web application.

In addition, what you can do here is add in some more hardware resources such as servers, memory, or processors to ensure that there always remains a backup to cope with the increasing traffic. Ultimately, this approach will help you ensure high availability while managing loads adequately.

 

Security Considerations

There is no escaping the fact that user data, in particular, carries significant market worth. So, since these applications process a bulk of user data at regular intervals, adding an extra robust security layer is absolutely necessary.

Being a developer, you should leverage vulnerability detection technologies, including but not limited to application security testing or software composition analysis, to ensure that there are no vulnerabilities in your application.

What’s more, having a well-defined Service Access Point that allows legitimate parties to access real-time applications is a necessity because of the high level of collaboration involved.

Technologies for Developing Real-time Web Apps

Given that a wide array of web development technologies are available, it can be pretty challenging to pick one as each has its drawbacks and benefits. However, the best way to figure out what technology will work best for you is to understand your requirements clearly.

Below appended are some of the most popular technologies that you can leverage.

MeteorJS

Based only on NodeJS, MeteorJS is an open-source platform offering built-in command line tools that you can utilize to create applications. What’s more, it provides a wide array of smart packages such as javascript frameworks, CSS frameworks, UI components, and more.

NodeJS

If you are looking for a fast, efficient, and highly scalable Javascript-based runtime environment, then NodeJS is your best choice. It is the preferred choice of many web developers, given the benefits it offers when it comes to web development.

PubNub

What sets PubNub apart from its competitors is that it focuses on real-time data delivery. Its application programming interface makes it quite easier for developers to send and receive real-time data. Moreover, It supports more than 50 SDKs, including but not limited to Java, Ruby, and Javascript.

FireBase

Last but not least, FireBase offers an advanced dashboard as well as configuration for User Authentication within the app. Aside from providing client-side library support, it also aids in mobile app development.

Conclusion

Real-time web apps indeed offer enhanced functionality and are taking over standard applications at a fast pace. They are a great way of increasing user engagement which, in turn, opens up new business possibilities, making them the preferred choice for several organizations.

However, developing real-time web applications is complex and requires careful consideration at each step. To stay ahead of the curve, you need to have a clear understanding of your target audience, come up with an engaging user interface, and develop an application that well exceeds when it comes to performance and scalability while offering top-notch security.