Evolution and Recent Trends in Web Development

11 min readMay 12, 2021

What is Web development?

Web development is building, creating, and maintaining websites. It includes aspects like web design, web publishing, web programming, and management in order that the website should look great, work fast and perform well. Web development covers tasks like web designing, scripting, eCommerce development, network security development, and far more. Web developers do that by employing a number of coding languages.

There are three types of web developers:

The Front-End Developer — The front-end developer is liable for the design and feel of the website. The role of the front-end web designer is to form the location to look beautiful, interactive, and responsive which suggests he/she should look out of the view of the location on a mobile, tablet, and desktop. a number of the languages employed by front web developers are-

2. The Back-End Developer- The back-end developer has the foremost important role in building an internet site. He’s the person about whom nobody really knows. A back-end developer writes the server-side code to form sure that the info should flow back and forth from a website’s front-end. A back-end developer can program in several programming languages, a number of them are:

Fig 7,8,9,10,11,12 [7][8][9][10][11][12]

3. The Full-Stack Developer- A Full stack web developer can work on both the front and rear. He’s an individual who can develop both client and server software.

Evolution of Web development:

The websites that we are using today are far different from the world’s first website which was published in 1990. Initially, the website was crammed with only text and links. With the introduction of the latest programs and features, web development evolved further and further because the web developers became capable of adding more elements to their websites unlike previously when the most focus of web developers was to feature the maximum amount of content on the website as possible. Currently, the main target is on refining their websites.

Today web developers strive to form their websites to look aesthetically pleasing and be interactively smoother than before. The aim of creating the websites interact smoothly is to permit the users to possess a more personalized experience and increase user engagement. An aesthetically pleasing and interactive website helps in ensuring that the contents are fresh and therefore the users are having a positive experience.

But how is that this massive change being made possible? Why didn’t the online developers try making their websites interactive and aesthetically pleasing a decade ago?

Well, the solution is straightforward. It wasn’t possible some time past in 1990. When the world’s first website was published only an internet browser available to the general public namely the road Mode browser wasn’t graphical.

Hence it had been impossible to feature images on the websites. Two years later, in 1992, the primary image was posted on the web then in 1993, the world’s first graphical browser was launched under the name of Mosaic 1.0. This enabled the varied companies around the globe to develop their own websites with “MTV” being the primary company to successfully publish their own website. But the evolution of web development didn’t stop here. Because the year 1994 witnessed the launch of 1 of the world’s most famous and popular browser Netscape. This new browser allowed the online developers to feature animated gifs and permit two important features namely text and formatting and tables. W3C was also founded this year to make a standard for web development. The year 1995 marked the start of a replacement era of interactive content during this year. The HTML structure and therefore the use of tables to format this structure gained popularity.

Furthermore, the favored programing language JavaScript was introduced. This year from 1996 to 1999 several new technologies were introduced but none were as notable because of the Cascading Style Sheets or CSS. The introduction of CSS was the primary step towards the separation of content and presentation. Hence CSS laid the inspiration for web development which is in use today. Rounded corner image was a really popular trend as border-radius wasn’t available until ten years later.

JavaScript was mainly wont to create effects like snowfall or fireworks. Flash was also considered because of the cutting-edge technology to make website animation at that point. In 2000, flash 5 and Action Script 1 were introduced. Also, the primary draft of the CSS3 specification was published during this year. In 2001 SVG format was introduced. This is often the primary vector image format for the website it can be written in XML. In 2003, the primary version of WordPress was created and marked the start of the dynamic era rather than the static HTML pages.

In 2004, the utilization of sprite was introduced by grouping together smaller images into one and use background-position to pick which image to point out this helped reduce the amount of HTML requests and size allowing web designers to place more graphical content on the page. In 2006, the primary CSS pre-processor SASS was created. This year extending CSS features and allowed we designer to make a more complex effect. In 2007, a CSS grid layout was introduced marked at the top of the table and floating divs era. In 2009, CSS flexbox was introduced allowing a designer to make a versatile layout without fear about alignment and spacing. The minimal design concept was also first introduced this year. In 2012, with the birth of responsive design rather than creating a separate mobile site, equivalent content might be utilized in different layouts counting on the screen size. Google font was also launched this year in creating typographic content to be using web design. In 2011, with the influence of Window 8, Metro of that design was very popular. Bootstrap CSS framework was also released this year increasing web design and development speed dramatically. In 2012, media query was introduced offering CSS the ability to track the screen size which is the core of the responsive design. The parallax scrolling concept was also introduced this year. 2014 was a year of 3D. A stable version of WebGL was launched using JavaScript. Additionally CSS 3D transform was becoming very popular at that time. In 2015, HTML5 became widely adopted and in this year YouTube decided to draw a Flash Player and use HTML5 Player instead of CSS3. Animation and transition were introduced this year which allows responsive buttons and menus. 2016 was a year of rising of minimal design. Lots of web designers tend to drop everything to basic. Mobile-first and thumb-friendly designs were also widely adopted this year. From 2017 to the present, with the maturity of design tools, we started to see lots of various design techniques to impress us, a symmetrical design, broken grid layout, animated background using video or WebGL. And that was the past 30 years from just a text website to a real-time 3d rendering. It is exciting to wait and watch what will happen in the coming 10 or 20 years [22].

Recent Trends in Web Development:

The world is steadily proceeding towards developing and emerging new technologies every day. This development engages the entrepreneurs to develop more technologies for the users to stay competitive in the market.

In this blog, we want to share some recent trends regarding Web development.

1. Progressive Web applications (PWA):

PWA is among the top trends of web development technologies but what does it mean? Web technology has been developed over the last some years. But unfortunately, the improvements we have seen on the desktop version haven’t translated to the mobile app. For example, consider Google maps. If you want to use google maps, what will you do? Will you use the web browser or the native app? Obviously, the native app will be used. Progressive Web Apps provide the user a radically improved experience. This is an app built from web technologies that include the languages such as HTML, CSS, and JavaScript, but with a feel and functionality that can actually compete for a native app. We can say that PWA is a website that feels like a mobile app [14].

PWA provides some key features such as:

a) The app can be installed on the mobile home screen.

b) Anyone can access the app even he is offline.

c) Push notifications functionality.

Advantages of PWA:

a) PWAs are cheaper than native apps.

b) PWA contributes towards Search Engine Optimization.

c) PWA takes less memory than the native apps.

d) PWA helps in engaging the mobile user on the web.

e) Using PWA, you don’t have to be dependent on the app stores [13].

Disadvantages of PWA:

a) With PWA, one cannot access the app store.

b) PWA has fever functionalities, ios do not support all the features of PWA.

c) Technical options such as Bluetooth or Near Field Communication cannot be applied to PWA [13].

2. Artificial Intelligence (AI):

AI assistants and bots are able to learn quickly, collect data, and also can solve difficult problems. AI is considered to be one of the most influential technologies that will shape the future of web development.

Alexa, chatbots, google assistant are the recent trends in the field of web development. AI chatbots, voice bots help the business to be engaged and the user to have an upgraded human interaction.

This had helped millions of people and a number of businesses to interact with the users more smoothly. It is very important to go with the pace and consider web technology trends. During a survey, it was found that 74% of the users prefer using chatbots, looking for answers to simple questions. It is the most used communication method since 2019 [23].

Advantages of Artificial Intelligence in Web development:

a) Personalized experience for the user.

b) Improves customer service.

c) Engages the user.

d) Helps in targeting a wider audience.

e) Available 24/7 [18].

Disadvantages of Artificial Intelligence in Web development:

a) High cost of implementation.

b) High risk of Unemployment.

c) Doesn’t improve with experience [18].

3. Voice Search:

Back in the days, the website was all about text. But with the evolution of web development, many more functionalities have included. Now, users prefer to use voice search over searching information using text. That’s why the web uses voice search as one of the emerging technologies in web development.

Near about 58% of people use voice search to find information about local things and most 72% of these people claim that it has become a part of their daily online lives. Voice Search Optimization proves to be very useful as it provides you with a chance to read out your pages loud by voice search device. It is a process to optimize your search.

Acceptance of voice search gadgets like Google Home, Alexa, Google Assistant, Siri, etc. has increased exponentially [15],[16].

Advantages of Voice Search:

a) Make the website mobile-friendly.

b) Faster and accurate output than text inputs.

c) Improve user experience [17].

Disadvantages of Voice Search:

a) Lack of Accuracy.

b) Misinterpretation [17].

4. Serverless Architecture:

2020 was the enforced work-from-home shift due to the spread of Covid-19. That’s why the use of cloud applications has been increased even more during this year and the Web which has been one of the most rapidly evolving domains experienced an increase in the demand for serverless architecture. Serverless computing has become one of the most interesting trends in web development [24].

Advantages of Serverless Architecture in web development:

a) It secures user identification.

b) It helps in the collection and storage of some personal data in case of any banking and other websites where information of the user needs to be entered.

c) It provides a user interface to app functionalities [19].

Disadvantages of Serverless Architecture in web development:

a) Architectural complexity.

b) Lack of operational tools [19].

5. Motion UI:

Users consider the design of the website as an important aspect of the actual product it offers. Web design is not all about fancy pictures, it is about creating effective and responsive interfaces that your users will like to use. Motion UI is completely based on extensive research, and when used properly, it boosts your page conversion rate easily. It is a powerful front-end library for the creation of animated UI elements. Using it, you can construct modular scrolling, background animations, etc. It helps you to express your unique style and keep your user engaged. Motion UI is more helpful in progressive web app design.

Advantages of Motion UI in web development:

a) Cost and Time effective.

b) With the animation design, it is easier to provide information and keep users engaged.

c) It raises brand recognition [25].

Disadvantages of Motion UI in web development:

a) Too much of it can distract the user.

b) Can slow down the loading speed [25].

6. Mobile friendly website:

As there is a rapid growth of mobile users, the mobile-first approach will largely affect the future of web development. It allows the business to cover this large number of mobile users. Mobile-friendly website content looks interactive and good not only on desktop but also on mobile devices. That means that the text looks appealing, links and navigation are clickable, etc. Mobile-friendly websites also rank higher in search results.

Advantages of the mobile-friendly website:

a) Faster download speed.

b) Improved user experience.

c) Flexible and cost-effective [26].

Disadvantages of the mobile-friendly website:

a) Loading speed under a 3G connection may affect the bounce rate of the website.

b) Compatibility issue [26].

The current trends in web development have completely changed the interface of the users. Businesses have emerged with new technology to stay connected with clients. Adopting these technologies, websites can stay competitive, effective and provides a great experience to their users.

Thank you!

We hope you find this blog interesting and helpful.

Guide: Prof. Aparna Mete Sawant.

Authors: Chanchal Mal, Adarsh Sharma, Shantanu Pingale, Nikita Patil, Sangeeta Malviya.

References: