Revolution Of Website Development & Design Till 2022

Hardly anything scares off potential customers more than a confusing, unattractive website. Anyone who wants to convince customers as a company on the Internet, who wants to provide information about their activities as an association or achieve something else with their Internet presence, needs a good Internet presence. Web agencies or freelance web developers take on the design, implementation and maintenance of websites.

Creating attractive, search engine optimized websites or web portals is a job for professionals. Having a web portal created and commissioning web agencies or freelancers with web development has the advantage for their clients that the site can be tailored precisely to the ideas and target group. In addition to the development of a website for small businesses, many website development agencies in Karachi also offer its maintenance or further development.

Definition – Web Development

Web development is a broad field, which is why it initially makes sense to consider this combination of words separately. When we colloquially “on the Internet”, in most cases we mean the “World Wide Web” (www.), which is the most common form of use of the Internet. By definition, the Internet is a network infrastructure, while the Web, which has existed since the 1990s, is a software infrastructure consisting of websites linked together by hyperlinks.

Responsive and Custom Website Development

Developing something is the process of creating or improving something. Strictly speaking, when we talk about web development, this would mean creating or improving websites or web-based applications (so-called web apps or web applications). However, the areas of competence of developers and web agencies usually go beyond this and also extend to the technical development of other products, such as in the area of software or mobile applications. Ultimately, this can include everything that is in the sphere of software solutions and digitization .

When it comes to the keyword website, it makes sense to first think of the external appearance, which is ultimately the first thing that catches the eye. This is one of the tasks of web design, which deals with the conception and implementation of graphics, coloring and the visual design of websites in general. But here, too, the transitions are fluid: web designers sometimes take on not only the graphics but also the technical development and web developers also the design of their projects. When working with an internet agency, you usually meet both professions working together on the implementation of websites and other digital projects.

In web development, different technologies and programming languages are used for the technical implementation. While there are programming languages designed specifically for web applications, such as PHP , the lines are becoming increasingly blurred. Web technologies can be used in a wide variety of scenarios these days. Even programming interfaces, so-called APIs , can be developed with web technologies. This is due to the high variability of programming languages – as soon as logical queries are possible, there are almost no limits.

History of Web Development

The World Wide Web

The field of web development is still a comparatively young discipline. It started around the 1990s. Previously, Tim Berners-Lee, an employee of the Swiss physics laboratory CERN, invented the World Wide Web in 1989. His idea was an international exchange of data between scientists, which was to be implemented via HTTP pages that were linked by hyperlinks. A steadily growing network quickly emerged, to which above all technology nerds with the programming of their own homepages were added contributed a great deal. These were either blogs, i.e. personalized link collections with diary-like entries, or simple HTML tables. Over time, more and more dynamic content was created with the help of databases, but web development was less mainstream and more of a niche.

With the founding of WordPress in 2003, the market for websites exploded. WordPress was initially a platform for blogs, but developed more and more into a content management system, CMS for short , which, thanks to its user-friendly user interface, requires almost no programming knowledge and thus makes website creation easier. Other providers followed this principle, so that laypersons could now build websites with countless CMS and website construction kits.

WordPress icon and logo

Web 2.0

The first social network was founded in 2004: With Facebook and other social media, a new era of the web dawned, in which interaction was now the top priority. This is also noticeable in web development, so that more and more social functions are integrated into websites.

Web 2.0 heralds the age of user-generated content : Instead of the passive consumption and one-way communication of static websites, it is characterized by collaborative use, as a result of which more and more content is no longer generated by website operators alone, but by users.

Web 3.0

As a logical consequence of this development, the web is being flooded with information and content. In order to deal with this large amount of data, also known as Big Data, and to create order, technologies and artificial intelligence are being developed that are intended to link content with meaning. That is why this third phase of the web is not only called Web 3.0, but also the semantic web. Personalized search engine results, which are derived from usage behavior – i.e., which search queries are made, which websites are visited and which services are used – and tailored advertisements for products in which the user is or could be interested are just part of it. In addition, search queries should no longer only generate results based on keywords, but also include meanings or interpretations instead of just providing information.

Today

Web development has undergone an immense change in a very short time. While it has developed from a niche discipline to the tools of the trade for many autodidacts and prosumers of Web 2.0, it is now in transition again. The tools for web development, such as development frameworks, are evolving and CMS, are constantly evolving and are therefore becoming more user-friendly, but today’s viewing habits are also completely different: With websites that look more and more professional and are equipped with the latest functions, the demands of users are also increasing. Even untrained eyes can usually tell the difference between a website set up with a construction kit and a professionally developed one at first glance. In addition, this brings further advantages in the areas of functionality, data protection and topicality. That’s why the trend is again towards putting the creation of a website in the hands of a web agency .

Areas of web development

While many development projects do not fall within the web development domain by definition, they are often included or fall within the domain of web developers. This includes websites, mobile apps, web apps and digital voice assistants.

Sites

The biggest area of web development is the creation of websites. Different types of websites can be distinguished:

Blogs

Blogs can be seen as the first major milestone of the web and the origin of websites. In the early days, Internet enthusiasts presented a personally curated collection of links on their website, their so-called “web-log”, which was a documentation of their Internet activity, or the websites they visited and special finds. These were expanded to include short comments and later longer texts, or took the form of an electronic diary. These could be followed and commented on by other users.

WordPress was probably the largest blogging platform. Since it was founded in 2003, however, it has gone through many changes and has now expanded its offering as a CMS. Today’s well-known platforms are Tumblr, Blogger or Medium or social networks like Instagram or LinkedIn, which some users repurpose as blogging platforms.

Nowadays, the blog can also be a section on a company’s or an individual’s website, which informs about current topics or individual products and is constantly updated.

Home Pages

The personal or company website, also called the homepage, acts like a kind of electronic business card and is the private or business Internet presence of individuals or companies. The design of this varies from a rather static one-page website for pure information procurement to an interactive and elaborately designed website with responsive design and state-of-the-art functions. The latter usually goes beyond the provision of information and is also used for internal (e.g. intranet) and external communication, transaction processing or represents a separate service.

Online Shops

Online shops are the digital counterpart to a business in the real world and enable a virtual purchase to be processed via a website. The offer can be viewed on this and products can be ordered, which are then also paid for via online payment functions and delivered to private addresses or to packing stations.

Marketplaces

On marketplaces, instead of just one, several online shops are combined on one website. Examples of this are Amazon or eBay. By combining several dealers, the selection of products is larger and also has the mutual advantage that the ordering processes are uniform and shipping can take place centrally.

Social Networks

It is possible to register a user profile on social networks such as Facebook, Twitter or Instagram, via which you can network with friends and contacts and share experiences or thoughts about postings either publicly or with selected virtual contacts.

Portals

Portals work in a similar way to social media by creating a user profile. While the topics and activities on social platforms can be wide-ranging, portals have a more specific objective, such as job exchanges, services, file-sharing platforms or flea markets.

Video Portals & Streaming Services

With YouTube, the first major amateur video platform developed in 2005. Some other providers such as MyVideo or Clipfish have followed suit. Here users can create a so-called channel and upload their self-produced videos according to the motto “Broadcast Yourself”, with which other users can interact through social functions such as comments or ratings. The videos, which are now no longer just amateurish, but are sometimes produced by large networks, can be embedded and shared on external websites. Some companies or agencies also operate their own video portal.

TV broadcasters now offer a large part of what they offer in a media library on their websites, from which the individual clips can be played on-demand, i.e. on demand instead of in the linear TV program.

Another big category are streaming services. Instead of buying films and series and downloading large files, they can be played on the website, on Smart TVs or via an app on mobile devices with a monthly subscription.

Mobile Apps

App, short for application, describes any form of an application, especially in the IT sector, an application is a computer program. In general usage, when we talk about apps, we usually mean mobile apps that are designed for use on a smartphone or tablet.

From an app development perspective is primarily a distinction between native and hybrid apps. Originally, apps could only be developed natively, i.e. from scratch for a single specific operating system. For this reason, for a long time there were apps that only worked on iOS or Android smartphones, but were not available for the other operating system. This problem was solved by so-called hybrid apps, which made the market boom. A hybrid app works via a narrow container that runs a website – so it is ultimately also based on HTML, CSS or Javascript. In the beginning, it was clearly noticeable and visible whether it was a native or a hybrid app. Hybrid apps are now developed using frameworks such as React.Native, which are compiled at the end of the development work,

By definition, an app is not, strictly speaking, a web product, but its functionality is very similar to that of a website due to the linking of its menu items or functions, or it can be expanded with an Internet connection.

Apps are the variables of a smartphone that make it individual for users and are intended to help with their personal everyday problems. The areas of application and types of apps are almost unlimited and range from the weather to search engines, calendars, word processing, games and entertainment, a wide variety of messengers, shopping, news and news tickers, navigation and traffic to online banking.

Web Apps

If an app is web-based, it is usually an application that runs via an internet browser. Unlike a website, a web app relies on user input and/or interaction to serve its purpose. A website therefore contains information that can also stand on its own and no longer requires any further user action. A web app, on the other hand, misses its target if there is no input: navigation services, browser-based chat or messenger services or games are considered web apps and are useless without the input and control of their users.

However, the lines between web apps and websites are becoming increasingly blurred. Thanks to the most modern technologies, applications are being implemented more and more frequently in websites and simple processes for complex interaction. Thanks to responsive web design , among other things , even information is rarely static.

Digital Voice Assistants

Digital language assistants are much older than you think. They have been used for barrier-free operation of computers and mobile phones for years and could read texts and control surfaces or execute voice commands. The new generation of language assistants are a form of artificial intelligence. The so-called chatbots, a communication interface that understands the voice input, interprets a keyword and even responds and acts in a structured way in the form of a computer voice, have gained popularity in recent years.

In 2010, Apple released Siri for iOS, which paved the way for its successors, Google Assistant and Amazon’s Alexa, and brought about a major shift in how people use technology. With these voice assistants, it is possible to operate smartphones, computers, tablets, SmartTVs and software for cars hands-free instead of entering commands using buttons, a keyboard, a mouse or a touchpad. It is also possible for them to answer, which gives them something like an artificial personality through the timbre of their answers.

Web applications are also increasingly equipped with Web Speech APIs. This enables speech recognition and speech synthesis (speech output) using JavaScript in browsers.

Aspects of web development

Commonly, the first association with web development is programming, i.e. writing the code of websites and apps, for example. The word developer is also often used as a synonym for programmer. Even if programming takes up a large part, web development involves much more than that. Because there are so many areas, the different skills are divided among several people in internet agencies, for example. According to this, there are further steps in the process of web development before and after programming that are part of the implementation of a successful project.

Advisory

Advice usually comes first. It is particularly important for freelancers in web development – but also in web agencies in which the areas of competence are divided – that all positions have basic knowledge that goes beyond their area of specialization in order to be able to assess projects and compare them with current developments and trends in the relating the web and the digital world. On this basis, a consultation can take place that outlines and takes into account all sub-areas.

Project Management

The area of project management includes, for example, customer acquisition and customer care, a resource analysis, the preparation of offers, the internal delegation of tasks and a general overview of the project. Especially in the areas of responsibility that contain financial aspects, knowledge of business administration and economics flows with it, which is why project managers often have a degree in these areas.

Conception

The conception is also part of the web development. Several areas of competence come together here: project managers, content managers or an editorial team coordinate the content of the project with the customer, for example which texts or other media should be integrated on a website. Programmers inquire and design the required functions, which designers then graphically accommodate in the first sketches.

Programming

As formulated at the beginning, the largest part of web development consists of programming work. This involves writing the code for the respective product in the appropriate programming language, such as PHP or Javascript, and with the help of a wide variety of development frameworks such as Laravel or VueJS and other tools.

Web Design

Web design is probably the second largest part of web development . This can also be subdivided into user interface or user experience design (UI/UX for short) and graphic design. As the name suggests, the UI/UX area deals with the user experience and behavior and, based on this, tries to design a user interface that is as intuitive, simple and enjoyable as possible. They do this with the help of so-called wireframes (link below?). On the basis of this, the first design drafts are then developed and presented by graphic designers, in constant consultation, both with the customer or the project manager as a contact person, and with the programmers, be adjusted. This results in concrete screen designs that are far more concrete and binding than wireframes. Unlike designers in the print sector or similar, web designers usually also have programming knowledge and integrate their design into the code independently. If they are pure graphic designers without the corresponding skills, the implementation takes place in cooperation with the programmers.

Content Management

As far as the content of a web project is concerned, the handling can be very individual depending on the project. In the majority of cases, for example when creating a website, the different media, i.e. texts, images, videos and the like, are already available and it is the task of the other aspects of web development to deal with them. If, for example, a website is set up from scratch, it is up to content managers and editors to obtain information in consultation with the customer and through research and to prepare it according to certain criteria. These criteria can also be applied to existing content in order to optimize it. Search engine optimization (SEO for short) serves to improve the placement of your own website in search queries in search engines such as Google for keywords that apply to your own product. This optimization can take place in two ways: Onpage SEO optimizes texts on the so-called landing pages of the website and peppers them with relevant keywords in order to bring the target group to the website. Off-page SEO, as the name suggests, takes place outside of the website and involves publishing guest posts on other websites or setting backlinks on forums back to your own website. However, off-page optimization is rarely part of web development. On-page SEO optimizes texts on the so-called landing pages of the website and peppers them with relevant keywords in order to bring the target group to the website. Off-page SEO, as the name suggests, takes place outside of the website and involves publishing guest posts on other websites or setting backlinks on forums back to your own website. However, off-page optimization is rarely part of web development. On-page SEO optimizes texts on the so-called landing pages of the website and peppers them with relevant keywords in order to bring the target group to the website. Off-page SEO, as the name suggests, takes place outside of the website and involves publishing guest posts on other websites or setting backlinks on forums back to your own website. However, off-page optimization is rarely part of web development.

Hosting, Monitoring and Maintenance

When planning to create a website, hosting, monitoring and maintenance are often neglected, although these are important aspects of web development: Hosting means putting the finished product online using web space, i.e. storage space on a server and a domain, that is an address from which the website can be accessed.

Once this is online and accessible, it needs to be constantly checked for errors. This is done through monitoring , which carries out permanent tests either automatically or manually, thus ensuring the accessibility and functionality of a website. Maintenance usually follows the monitoring, when the errors found are corrected manually and the website is optimized.

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