What is a Progressive Web App?

PWAs offer native app features and experiences with offline access and push notifications for a website. This unparalleled technology allows websites developed as Progressive Web Apps to look and behave like a mobile applications.

Yes, that includes having a downloadable icon on your smartphone's main screen. Cool, right? And that’s not even the best part. They are faster than mobile apps and they operate without an internet connection!

Offline Mode

You’ve no doubt experienced the inability to access a website due to your poor or non-existent mobile phone internet connection. This is where PWAs are an absolute lifesaver. All information is cached which enables you to access the web app in the future without internet connectivity. This offline app can benefit businesses, in particular, with an online shop and product catalogue display. Offline viewers can still access the cached product catalogue through the Progressive Web App and save their shopping cart before making a purchase later.

eCommerce PWAs

Additionally, any credit card information stored on your mobile device will auto-fill during the shopping cart purchase prompts, decreasing the user's likelihood of abandoning the shopping cart by approximately 50%. This implies that there is a direct impact on convenience and conversion of sales, which means your return on investment for developing a Progressive Web App is very high.

Maintenance

Native (traditional) applications require significant budgets for maintenance when making the simplest of changes. Many apps are regularly left outdated due to a lack of budget to allocate for app developers to make changes. Even for simple app developments, yearly maintenance budgets are estimated at approximately AUD$10,000. Which are completely unaffordable for small and medium-sized businesses. Plus the updates take a significant amount of time before taking effect. The developer needs to make the changes, these changes need to be approved by both the iOS Store and Play Store, and then the user has to click update. And that's if things go smoothly!

There are so many steps and processes to make even simple changes. This is where Progressive Web Apps have an enormous advantage over native apps. PWAs are significantly cheaper, easier and quicker to maintain through the use of a content management system - even you can make the changes at any moment.

Responsivity

Whilst being completely fluid and fast on all web browsers and devices, Progressive Web Apps help reach larger audiences in the largest expanding market online – mobile apps. Estimations suggest that by 2019 there will be over 5 billion mobile phone users, demonstrating this ever-growing audience seeking content. And the low program file size makes PWAs highly attractive to users. Below is a list of the average file size of apps for Android and iOS compared to PWAs.

• Android = 11.5MB
• iPhone = 37.9MB
• PWA = 350KB

Source: Marfel

Low File Size

As you can see, there is no comparison. The ridiculously low file size ensures that the Web App is fast to load. According to Google, 53% of users will abandon a website if it takes longer than 3 seconds to load. Providing Progressive Web Apps with the ultimate competitive online edge. User retention.

The low file size of the PWA also reduces the likelihood of users removing it from their phones to increase their storage capacity once their device has run out of hard drive space. After all, deleting approximately 350KB won’t help you increase storage capacity.

Leading organisations

When organisations such as WhatsApp and NASA are using Progressive Web Apps to replace their own respective websites, your ears should perk up. With the full weight of Google, Microsoft and Apple, there is little doubt that Progressive Web Apps are the future of mobile web browsing.

There certainly appears to be a strong emphasis on user experience with the development of Progressive Web Apps. Trends are suggesting that consistency amongst all devices is key for user experience and the tech giants are merely responding to the market forces accordingly. Seeing the same information whilst accessing a desktop, laptop, iPhone, Android, tablet, Surface computer and even on the TV, consistency and easy recognition is becoming a must.

Consistency, user experience and easy recognition are 3 core values that JABA insists upon whilst developing a website or a PWA. Speak to the team at JABA to find out how you can improve your online presence and get an edge over your competitors. Contact us to find out more.

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