Do you need a progressive web application?

Today progressive web app development is a great alternative to building complex software. Combining the best of mobile and web solutions, PWAs allow organizations to reduce software engineering costs and improve time-to-market while providing an engaging user experience.

By making a PWA, you can reach the audience via multiple devices (smartphones, desktops, tablets, etc.), enhance user engagement, and boost the conversion rate. Forbes, Twitter, Pinterest, Starbucks, AliExpress, and the Washington Post have already created PWAs and obtained impressive results.

In this article, you will explore the main advantages of progressive web apps and learn how you can benefit from using this type of software solution.

What is a progressive web application?

A PWA is a combination of a website and mobile app: the product is built using web technologies such as HTML, CSS, and JavaScript but acts like a mobile application that users can install on their smartphones. PWAs can work on any platform employing a standards-compliant browser, for instance, Chrome, Safari, or Mozilla Firefox.

Ensuring an immersive full-screen experience, a PWA can be downloaded from the website. As a consequence, users don’t have to go to the app store to install a product or search for a site every time they need to access its content.

To install a PWA, a user performs the following actions:

visiting a website or web page
clicking on the “Add to the home screen” button.

A progressive web application runs offline, supports push notifications, provides high performance, and fits any device from desktops to tablets. Since PWA development offers various benefits, this is one of the key software engineering trends in 2021.

Top 6 advantages of progressive web apps

1. Improved user experience

Employing to push notifications, you can interact with the audience by sending useful information and reminders. One of the main PWA advantages is that users receive messages even if there is no Internet connection, which allows companies to enhance experience. With two APIs (application programming interfaces) under the hood—Notification API and Push API—push notifications are triggered locally or pushed from the server.

Thanks to the application shell model, a PWA feels like a native solution involving app-style navigation. In addition, users can access product functionality with one click instead of visiting a website each time they need to access the necessary content or functionality. By saving their time, you increase customer satisfaction.

OLX—a provider of an online advertisement and trading platform—improved user engagement by 250% with push notifications and decreased bounce rate by 80%.

2. Costs savings and improved time-to-market

Reduced software engineering costs are among the primary benefits of progressive web apps. Since it’s much easier and faster to make a PWA compared with web and mobile solution development, you cut down project expenses and improve time-to-market.

3. Offline access

Offline access to a digital solution is another advantage of progressive web apps. To enable offline access, a PWA employs a server worker, a type of web worker, which is independent of a software product it is associated with.

In fact, it’s a JavaScript file that intercepts network requests, caches/retrieves resources from the cache, and delivers push notifications. With server workers, PWA development teams enable background synchronization, content caching and updating.

When customers can access the app 24/7 even when there is no Internet connection. As a consequence, they spend more time with your product, which leads to increased sales.

4. Fast page loading

An application shell architecture is a way to create a PWA that instantly loads on user screens. When cached offline, the app shell can provide high performance during repeat user visits. Many organizations report they have managed to achieve faster page load speed through PWA development. Look at the following examples:

By making a progressive web application, Settled—the UK real estate company—reduced content loading time by nearly 33.3%.
Tinder improved page load speed by more than 2.3 times. The company’s PWA is 90% smaller than its Android app.
me—the Chinese leading provider of food ordering and delivery services—cut load times by 11.6% on pre-cached pages and by over 6.3% on all other pages.

PWA is a lightweight solution that occupies less space and memory in comparison with mobile apps, which may prevent your app from uninstalling.

“Around 60% of visitors to Flipkart’s mobile web had uninstalled the app earlier, primarily due to lack of device storage space.” —Amar Nagaram, Vice President, Engineering at Flipkart

5. Enhanced security

Served via Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure (HTTPS) that uses encryption, a progressive web application allows companies to protect against snooping and prevent content from being tampered with.

6. Responsiveness

A consistent user experience (UX)—meaning the application looks great on all screens—is an essential standard of product quality. Design responsiveness is among the key advantages of progressive web apps. Building a PWA, you can deliver an engaging UX across all devices, involving smartphones, desktops, laptops, and tablets.

Achieving great results with PWA development

1. AliExpress, e-commerce

AliExpress—a world-famous online retail service owned by Alibaba—was looking for a way to reach customers through the web offering them the advantages of its mobile application. However, the company found it difficult to deliver an amazing experience on the web in terms of performance and offline access, which was essential for user re-engagement. To resolve this challenge, the organization realized the value of PWA development.

By making a progressive web app, AliExpress raised the conversion for new users by 104% and for iOS users—by 82%, as well as improved time per session by 74%. In addition, the company increased the number of pages viewed per session by 2 times.

2. Kubota, e-commerce

Kubota—a well-known Polish shoe brand—wanted to launch an e-commerce store meeting the expectations of mobile-first shoppers. Aiming to attract users and generate profit, the company aimed to improve the page loading time, enable product security, and ensure offline availability.

To address these issues, Kubota created a progressive web app. Thanks to PWA development, the organization saw a 192% increase in daily users and reduced the load speed by 30%.

3. Nikkei, media and entertainment

Established in Japan, Nikkei is a media company with a history of more than 140 years. As its website was built on top of the outdated technology stack, it wasn’t able to withstand heavy loads. The organizations also needed to improve user experience and reduce the page load speed, which at that time could reach 20 seconds.

To resolve these challenges, Nikkei developed a multi-page progressive web application increasing the website organic traffic by 2.3 times. The number of user subscriptions raised by 58%, the load time of interactive content was reduced by over 3.3 times, the number of daily visitors jumped by 49%.

Conclusion

There are many advantages of progressive web apps, from reduced software engineering costs to faster page loading time, improved customer engagement, and faster time-to-market. If you aim to reach the audience on mobile and web platforms while ensuring a seamless user experience, you should think about building a PWA tailored to your business-specific needs.