Web technology, like most other industries has strong trends running through each year. So, what does 2019 have in store?
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Let’s start with the tech. There are 3 big hitters this year:
1. Up first are open-source Javascript libraries ReactJS and VueJS both of which can be layered on top of a Drupal backend and are a real game changer in increasing the speed and efficiency of designing and creating rich and engaging web apps. We predict that they will prove to be a big hit amongst developers, providing them with a great set of tools to build quick loading apps.
2. Progressive Web Apps are a new wave of web applications that feel like native mobile apps to the user, but are loaded like regular web pages. They can be launched from the user's home screen even when they are not connected to the internet and can offer functionality like push notifications. Reliable and fast, Progressive Web Apps give the user the much sought after immersive app like experience. In a nutshell, they combine the flexibility and development speed of the web with the feel of a mobile app. We think they are going to be one of the key features used in web development in 2019.
3. Our final focus in on Machine learning. This is an incredible technical advancement and a type of artificial intelligence that can perform a task without explicit instructions, relying instead on making inferences from models and data. Once it has learned the training data, the machine is able to make predictions or decisions without being explicitly programmed. Machine learning for example is widely used in spam filters where it can learn to recognise junk mail and phishing messages based on what users flag as spam. Advances are being made quickly and the technology can now perform tasks as sophisticated as recognising a face in an image or deciphering handwriting. With such wide-reaching benefits, we predict that this technology will gain even more pace this year thanks to Google and Microsoft offering pay-as-you-go cloud based services. Businesses will be able to tap into the advantages of this very smart technology, using it to pick out features in images, turn text into speech or speech to text, annotate videos, run automatic translation or analyse unstructured text using natural language processing.
Over to our design predictions. Colours are trending towards highly saturated pastels. Think mint, salmon, peach or lilac. The overall feel is still leaning to a clean, crisp finish with content being kept to a minimum but fonts are bigger and bolder creating impact and punch. Animation continues to play a key part in engaging the user throughout their experience as users still demand to be entertained through their web journey. The use of illustration is increasing, and many designers are using it in an icon like format to communicate a particular point. Traditional row layouts are being challenged with more creative, off centre approaches to break up content.
The one thing that is certain is that 2019 brings new opportunities. Whether you’re thinking about to use tech developments to better serve your users or thinking about a design refresh, we can help. We design and build technical solutions to help organisations present their best selves to the outside world and to help them to run more effectively and efficiently on the inside. If we could help you, please get in touch.