While it’s clear that web development professionals have to deal with many challenges, figuring out which ones are the most difficult can be difficult. Since we like to stay up-to-date on this industry and its latest trends, we’ve decided to compile this list of ten top challenges in web development and how to overcome them. If you want to successful in this field, knowing about these issues and how to solve them will help you tremendously. Let’s begin!
Table of Contents
1) Setting Goals
Create goals based on your budget, timeline and constraints. You should also set realistic goals so you aren’t setting yourself up for failure. If you don’t know how to write code, you shouldn’t set a goal of building a website from scratch in HTML by next week.
Smaller goals are more manageable, and they pave a clear path toward big results down the road. If you have extensive experience creating WordPress websites and want to create your own theme from scratch, then go for it! But don’t forget: smaller steps lead to bigger results.
2) Designing and UI (User Interface)
What is a design? Design is not just color, shapes, and images. It’s how something looks, sounds, feels and works. While aesthetics are important (and have their own challenges), it’s not where design stops. Designing an effective UI isn’t easy.
On top of pleasing visual preferences, there are many usability issues that you must consider when designing a website’s interface and navigation system; for example: user readability, balance between screens on various devices or consistent navigation across all pages of your site.
Keep in mind also that users will experience your site from different platforms and browsers so you must account for these differences as well.
3) Speed and Performance
There are many factors that play into speed and performance for a web page. A web developer may have to make decisions about fonts, colors, images, as well as what platform is used for an application. When looking at a website that loads slowly, there are often other components on it or additional applications being loaded that can slow down a user’s experience with it.
Adding new features or redesigning old ones can affect how fast something performs on a webpage. For example, developers may want to redesign something and in doing so remove older fonts or add more images and videos. All of these things can affect how fast a website loads which is why it’s important for web developers to keep performance in mind when making any changes to web applications.
4) Getting The Right Web Development Company
If you are going to outsource your website design and development, it is better if you get quality service. But how do you choose a company that is right for your business? Here are some tips:
1) Look at their portfolio. If they’ve been around a while and have done well, check out their portfolio of past clients and how much they charged for each project.
2) Check for customer reviews – Search for reviews about them on Google and Yelp as well as social media sites like Facebook and Twitter.
5) Safety and Security of Website
When it comes to your business website, you need a partner that is just as dedicated to your safety and security as you are. While many hosts claim they keep customers’ information secure, make sure your site is protected by a technology called two-factor authentication. In addition, make sure all data stored on third-party servers—like what happens with shopping carts—is encrypted before it’s sent.
This ensures hackers have no way of accessing your payment details or personal information like credit card numbers and social security numbers. Remember: The more secure your website is, the more likely clients will feel safe conducting business online with you.
6) Going Mobile First
Mobile first is a catchphrase that has spread throughout all industries, especially web development. The concept behind mobile first is to think about how your website would function on a smaller screen before you consider how it might function on larger screens. Many designers go through a sketching process which allows them to narrow down their idea for layout and design and prototype using software like Axure or Omnigraffle.
Before you even begin working with HTML/CSS, taking some time thinking about how your mobile users will view your website is important for creating an effective experience for those users. Skipping over mobile completely when creating a website can be disastrous, especially if you are trying to reach customers on their cell phones who may not have access to any other device.
7) Search engine friendly development
Though we may be a generation steeped in technology, we are also a generation that has become exceedingly impatient. If your site is more than five seconds slow to load, you’re likely going to lose potential customers before they even have a chance to look at your products or services.
Optimizing your site for search engines is something you should do from the very start of development, and will help get those potential customers onto your site before it even loads.
Another challenge that shouldn’t be overlooked is mobile-friendliness; these days it seems like everyone has an iPhone or Android phone, but not everyone has high-speed Internet access, which can make for some frustrating experiences when trying to access sites on mobile devices.
8) Investing In Technology Rather Than Tools
There are two main ways you can approach technology for your business. You can buy tools, or you can invest in technology. Tools are a good way to get started—they’re quick and inexpensive and often provide a lot of bang for your buck.
Tools aren’t a bad idea when you’re getting started, but for more experienced companies, focusing on technology is more valuable because it will allow you and your team to take advantage of functionality over time rather than having it be a set-it-and-forget-it affair that requires repurchasing every year or two.
9) Balancing features with simplicity
Although I don’t recommend counting features as a measure of success, you might be surprised by how often clients (and designers) try to control scope by looking at things that way. It’s almost impossible to account for everything a project may need, so striking a balance is vital.
Recognizing your own personal preferences when it comes to feature complexity will also help make things more manageable. For example, if simplicity is important to you and time isn’t, don’t expect yourself (or your clients) to prioritize reduction of features over timeline.
10) Bridging the talent gap
A big challenge in the tech industry, according to the panelists, is bridging the talent gap. There is a shortage of candidates who are skilled enough and familiar with today’s technologies. This makes hiring challenging at times.
Employers typically use sourcing tools such as LinkedIn and even social media channels like Facebook or Twitter to reach potential candidates. It can be difficult, however, to determine if someone has the skills required for a particular job opening. An applicant may have years of experience with a certain technology but not necessarily what you need for your job opening.
Conclusion
Developing a web app isn’t easy, but it is rewarding. The skills you pick up along the way will serve you well no matter what career path you decide to take down the road. When you hire web developers in India, their ultimate goal is to keep these challenges in mind and design systems that work seamlessly with them from day one.
Given how quickly software evolves, there are always new things we can learn and improve upon when it comes to building websites that are easy-to-use, fast and scalable—and that don’t make our users lose their minds.
Author Bio:
Amy Parker
Hey, I am a technology consultant at AppsDevPro, a leading Mobile & Web development company that offers offshore mobile, web, frontend, full-stack developers. I have 18+ years of experience in writing and always looking for new ways to improve skills and learn from others.
