What are Progressive Web Apps and Why Businesses are Rapidly Adopting them?

The evolution of smartphones introduced many native applications to mankind that took user experience to a whole new level.

While native applications have been the focus for many years, a new idea called a Progressive Web App (PWA) entered the scene and greatly facilitated the lives of both users and developers. PWA made it less difficult for users to download applications and made it quicker and easier for developers to update the software.

GoodFirms Leaders Roundtable is a series of podcast discussions that the company will have with the experts and market leaders across the globe to support the startups with the right insights.  

For this podcast episode, we bring to you Rakshit Khandelwal, CEO of Protonshub Technologies. 

Rakshit has been leading Protonshub Technologies since 2018 and has helped it achieve incredible heights quite swiftly. Protonshub has built custom software solutions for giants like Eduparc, Instago, Henkel, and more. Protonshub Technologies aims to create compelling software that makes brands more relatable, relevant, and revolutionary. 

The Podcast discussion focuses on the following key areas:

1. What are Progressive Web Apps and their benefits
2. The reason why bigger companies are adopting  PWA technology
3. Potential advantages/drawbacks in developing PWA 
4. Can PWA and AR/VR technology go hand-in-hand?

Through this free podcast session, you will: 

• Understand the factors that must be considered before developing PWA
• Know how much time and effort goes into creating PWA from the ground up
• How to battle the unexpected design challenges while developing PWA
• How GoodFirms helped Protonshub Technologies increase brand visibility in a highly competitive market

There is still some confusion about what a Progressive Web App is and how it differs from traditional Web apps. What, in your opinion, are the benefits and characteristics that distinguish Progressive Web Apps?

People all over the world are using Progressive Web App but are somehow unaware of it or usually confuse it with a website or a traditional web application. 

Now there are several benefits of PWA that clearly makes it a standard choice for business of any size and some of them are as follows:

• Relatively lesser cost for development: Building a native application requires the expertise of languages that support various versions of Android and iOS which can increase complexities resulting in stretching the cost involved. PWA uses a single codebase for multiple platforms and versions and has identical display functionality in all the available versions.
• Ease in Distribution: Developing a native app is tough but pushing it across various app stores like Google, Apple, Amazon windows, and so on is even tougher. With PWA all the tedious processes are removed and all needed is a web browser and a URL.
• User-Perspective: It is often tedious for users to keep installing apps and updating them every now and then. With PWA, all that is required is a URL. Users can add it to the browser bookmark and use it at their convenience without the worry of memory allocation.

Leading brands such as Twitter, the Washington Post, Pinterest, and others are heavily investing in PWA. What are the driving factors behind the shift from traditional web apps and native apps to PWAs?

I truly believe that trend is the proof of concept and as you mentioned that the front runners are themselves investing in PWA proves that in today’s world, PWAs have managed to hold up the value by delivering performance matched with Business Outcomes.

PWAs are so fascinating and attractive for entrepreneurs because they are so storage friendly, involve no obligation of various app stores, and influence effective user engagement. No wonder after launching the PWA version of Twitter, the company witnessed an increase in the page session time by 65% and a decrease in bounce rate to as low as 20%.

What factors should you consider before deciding to create a PWA? When Should a Progressive Web Application Be Created?

Developing a PWA is a wise business decision, but it also inculcates a few check parameters to make an amazing, efficient, and of its kind PWA.

• Progressiveness: Progressive means something that is ever-evolving. Therefore, it is important to develop a PWA with a clear goal of upgrading it for better functionalities and features, that’s when the user experience becomes memorable.
• Responsiveness: With a plethora of devices available today it is important to have responsiveness defined as per varied screen sizes to fit into any viewport.
• Security and safety Architecture: Since PWA interacts more intimately with the user because of its accessibility on multiple devices it must be hosted with HTTPS protocol to ensure optimum security defined.

While we have been discussing the benefits of PWA, the 'website as an app' solution isn't appropriate in every circumstance. What are the potential drawbacks of PWA, in your opinion?

Like every coin has two sides, similarly, PWA too has its own drawbacks that are sure to be resolved in coming times.

• Incompatibility with iOS: Since the term PWA was coined by Google in 2015, there haven’t been many issues as far as Android is concerned but the same is not true with iOS. In the older versions of iOS, it has been particularly difficult for PWA to access many important features including Touch ID, Face ID, ARK it, Bluetooth, serial, Beacons, altimeter sensor, and even battery information. However, after the launch of iOS 11.3, there has been a shift in the compatibility of PWA with iOS.
• PWA is not an All-rounder - At the moment, access to certain important device features is still missing, including Bluetooth, proximity sensors, ambient light, advanced camera controls, and others.

So far, we've learned that the advantages of a PWA go beyond UX and conversion rates. Can you tell our readers how much time, money, and effort goes into creating a PWA from the ground up for small and big dedicated projects?

Typically, a standard PWA development takes approximately  3 to 5 months depending upon complexity, framework, databases, and features. Though it is a broad number, we at Protonshub Technologies believe in breaking down the project into multiple milestones to have a very distinct vision.

With native apps, developers will spend time understanding and developing versions of the applications on each platform like Android and iOS whereas, a progressive web app is much faster to build, and easier to maintain.

PWAs' main goal is to be responsive and user-centric. What unexpected design challenges have you encountered during PWA implementation in your projects and how did you successfully overcome them?

The below-mentioned factors must be considered while designing and developing progressive web applications.

• Proper approach: PWAs are often developed to replace the native app and hence must be developed in a way keeping the user expectation in mind. It is important to ensure none of the web-based UI elements creep into the PWA.
• Strategy: It is a lesser-known fact but Facebook PWA has 16 in-built PWA designed for multiple users with multiple user choices. Therefore, it must be determined beforehand on the number of PWAs required to be developed.
• Content: While developing PWA, there must be a fine balance between the images and content used on the application. It is important to have low-resolution images with optimized sharing options while using content that is more engaging and illustrious.
• Haptic feature: Users being unaware of the difference between a PWA and a native app often have high expectations of having touch features similar to them, and this is one of the most common challenges in the PWA implementation.

What Does the Future Hold for Progressive Web Apps With New Technologies Like AR & VR?

Currently, AR/VR is on a spree to expand its reach to the web app segment but the successful amalgamation of AR/VR with the web app is yet to be seen. WEBVR and WEBXR, the latest segments in the AR/VR technology are trying to integrate with web applications but continuous improvements are required. 

Being a fairly new company, can you please let our audience know how GoodFirms helped you increase your brand visibility in this highly competitive market?

GoodFirms not only assisted us with our brand visibility but also helped in:

• Recognizing ProtonsHub Technologies as a top 10 listed company in the software development space.
• Grew our exposure by 5 times.
• The ability to function a bit ahead of our competitors has been helping us set our future objectives in a more transparent and structured manner.
• We now have a better understanding of market penetration and our portfolio on GoodFirms has reached out to countries where we had limited or zero presence.
• The review process of GoodFirms being so authentic and genuine has helped bag recognition as a premier and trusted custom software development company in the current times.

To know more about the discussion, listen to the podcast.

 What Next?

Gartner research director (Jason Wong) once Quoted “It is not the question whether you use PWA or not, Question is When”

With bigger companies using Progressive Web Apps to reach more customers and increase revenue, small and medium-sized businesses will soon find reasons to launch PWAs for their business thus making user engagement a lot easier and reducing bounce rates considerably.

About GoodFirms Leaders Roundtable  

Leaders Roundtable is a campaign undertaken to discuss the pain points of budding entrepreneurs. In this campaign, we talk with representatives of successful IT companies and take their views regarding topics in technology, business strategies, and more. 

To get your company enrolled in our campaign, please drop a mail at [email protected]