Web Development Checklist: A useful Guide for Web App Development Teams!

 

With the large number of Web Development technologies surfacing to build modern-day web apps, Web App Development is getting increasingly complex and challenging. With the internet brimming with abundant web applications, users abandon and switch to other web applications in no time, if the application fails to satisfy their expectations, thereby damaging company’s brand reputation. So, for delivering a successful end-product, the organization needs to carefully execute each of these developmental and promotional stages to minimize errors, conform to business objectives, and provide a rich user experience.

However, fulfilling all the aforesaid factors becomes quite complicated and time-consuming. Hence, chances of lapses are likely; specifically, if your team is inexperienced or in a hurry to complete a project within the set timeline. Therefore, the web development team should maintain a checklist of the essential tasks; to avoid any misses.

This blog provides web development checklists that your team needs to refer to; for building a successful web application or a website. The following checklists have been created by consolidating the inputs from software-sector veterans; and will help a Web App Development Company to ensure that important action items are not neglected or overlooked.

Before we dive deeper let’s have a look at why checklists are required.

Checks for Web Development

Every web app development project must undergo the following validations to ensure the creation of a flawless website. Let’s have a look at the key checklists and understand their importance.

Design, UX and SEO checks

• Optimize your website for all kinds of devices – mobiles, tablets, laptops and desktops.
• Get rid of irrelevant images.
• Check whether the UX design has been executed as per the set standards.
• Make sure your website is free of broken links and validation errors. Broken links – the links which show an error or the “page not found” message on clicking – adversely affect the UX and also the website’s SEO score.
• Remember to include meta tags - title, description, etc. – as they improve the website’s position and boost the chances of ranking in the search engines.

Readability checks

• Cross-check the website content for any possible mistakes regarding spellings, grammar, etc. before the website’s live launch.
• Make sure that your content is unique and free of plagiarism.
• Adjust the font style to ensure that your web page is easy to read and scan; as this factor is a game-changer in terms of user retention.

Functionality and Performance checks

• Check the appearance and loading speed of your images. In case they are slower in loading or appear blurred; have this problem fixed by optimizing the image-size. Optimization of images improves performance as well as search engine rankings.
• Check the loading time of your website. If the loading time turns out to be more than 4 sec, get the issue fixed, or else it will adversely affect your viewership.
• Check your website’s rendering and performance on trending browsers such as Mozilla, Chrome, Safari, Opera, Internet Explorer, etc.
• Your website’s caching should always be turned on as caching optimizes the speed of a webpage and also minimizes the server-load by minimizing scripts like JavaScript and CSS that are time-consuming. A cache plugin named ‘W3 Total Cache’ can be easily installed if WordPress is being used to build the website.
• Ensure that your web page involves effortless navigation and all the links are functional.

Security checks

• SSL (Secured Socket Layer): Possessing an SSL (Secured Socket Layer) certificate is desirable if your website gathers sensitive user-information such as personal details, credit cards/banking particulars.
• An anti-malware Plugin: The usage of anti-malware plugins helps to combat malware threats and protect a website from viruses and malware attacks.

Handy Web Development Checklists and their offerings

Now have a look at the ready-made Web development checklists recommended for your team!

Checklists related to an app’s pre-launch and post-launch

• The Essential Pre-launch Checklist for Your Website comprises functionality, design elements, cross-browser testing, content editing, and SEO.
• Website Launch Checklist by Glasgow developer offers tools for checking actions after completion, greying out items that are not applicable, and resetting the checklist to make it ready for the next project. It includes content editing, links’ testing, navigation usability, CSS and HTML validity, GDPR compliance, Communication, infrastructure, styles and scripts’ minification, compatibility, analytics, accessibility, performance, etc.
• The Essential Launch Checklist for Web Apps and Mobile Apps by Ben Cheng enables product managers to test the performance level, security, compatibility, and broken links in applications.

Checklists on Front-end performance

•  A front-end Deployment Checklist by Fred Rocha, guides on validating the markup; and checking the performance, the console for JavaScript, and many more.
• The Front-end Checklist by David Dias is a digital interactive tool wherein one has to enter the project’s URL to get a full report on areas such CSS, HTML, JavaScript, head, web fonts, images, SEO, performance, and accessibility. This check is an exhaustive one and categorizes items based on high, medium, or low priority requirements.
• Front-end Performance Checklist 2020 by Vitaly Friedman offers the following items How to get ready on planning and metrics, how to set realistic goals, define the environment, assets, build and delivery optimizations, monitoring, and testing, etc.

Checklists related to the backend server and database security

• Back-end Best Practices provides stack-agonistic guidance on the best available practices involving different back-end architectures like security, data storage solutions, app monitoring, server environments, etc. It also offers a responsibility checklist for organizing the team-tasks and a release-checklist needed at the time of launch of the app or website.
• Database Testing Checklist offers items regarding stored procedures, database integrity, field validation, transactions, security, constraints, etc.

Checklists on Cross-browser testing

• Cross-browser Testing Checklist Before Going Live includes testing on font rendering, element alignment, API connections, etc.
• Cross-browser Testing Checklist offers all items needed for testing on various browsers and OS.

Final Verdict:

Thus, comprehensive knowledge about these checklists is essential for architecting a flawless and universally acceptable web app or website for your business. Click here to know about the robust JavaScript frameworks for crafting web apps.

I hope this blog was helpful. Have you come across any roadblocks while web app development? Do share your experiences in the comments section below and let us know in case of further queries.

What are Progressive Web Apps and why are they trending in the web world?

“Google has started replacing some of its Android apps in Chrome OS with Progressive Web Apps!”

This news on the famous American Technology and Science-News brand, ‘The Verge’, has put light on why Progressive Web Apps (PWAs) have gained so much popularity recently. PWAs have gained more attention after the announcement of Apple to support Safari with the help of Service worker and Web Manifest. In the mobile technology, native apps are considered to be most sought after apps because of the experience they provide, however with the advent of digitalization, PWAs also are equally making mark and have come up as a cost effective way by providing a great web experience with native features. Google and Microsoft are also pushing PWAs for ensuring that businesses provide an improved web experience.

This article is a summary of what are Progressive Web Apps and their key benefits. Let us have a look at how they are gradually becoming a hot trend for start-ups as well as small and large enterprises.

What are Progressive Web Apps?

PWA is a web based application having look and feel like a native mobile app.  As these are web apps they can be run from anywhere on the internet making it platform independent. The PWAs have extra features than the regular web pages, due to which they provide an exemplary user experience. They are developed using modern APIs for delivering native-like capabilities and reliability. With a single codebase, these apps can reach anyone and anywhere, on any device with ease.

In some cases, PWAs are even faster and more functional than their native mobile app counterparts. They are built using HTML, CSS and JavaScript and run on top of a script named a service worker. Chrome and Firefox are the best browsers to support them.

Here is a glimpse of the giant companies using PWAs:

• AliExpress, a famous e-commerce site owned by the Alibaba Group
• Forbes, a top U.S. business magazine
• Pinterest
• Twitter Lite
• Flipkart, largest e-commerce site in India
• BookMyShow,  India’s largest ticketing company
• Lancôme, a French luxury cosmetics brand
• Settled.co.uk, a renowned real-estate firm 

Features of Progressive Web Apps

There are several features and capabilities of the Progressive Web Apps which are contributing to providing an amazing web experience to the users. These features enable the PWAs to behave in the same way as a native mobile application.

• PWAs can send push notifications like native apps.
• They can work offline as well.
• They have access to hardware features like microphone, webcam, battery status, Bluetooth, payments, biometric authentication, compass, accelerometer, gyroscope and even sensors.
• They can be shared easily via URLs.
• They can be used on full-screen mode.
• Search engine indexing is possible with PWAs.
• They have access to the file system.
• They have clipboard access.
• They have background sync support 

Key Benefits of Progressive Web Apps

Improved Performance:

They can be quickly installed and can load instantly. PWAs cache and serve images, text and other content efficiently, which enables faster working of the apps. They are highly secure and reliable for continuous use. They provide a smooth and immersive experience to the users. PWAs don’t require a ton of a space like the native apps. They don’t need much storage on the device as well. Also, they use lesser data as compared to the native apps. As a result they give a better performance.

Enhanced Security:

As PWAs work on HTTPS protocol, they provide safe data and reduces the risk of security issues. This protocol prevents tampering of content and snooping.

Custom offline page:

PWAs can seamlessly work in offline mode thereby giving a better native like experience rather than navigating the user to default offline page of browser. It runs flawlessly in poor internet connectivity conditions as well.

No updates required:

PWAs do not have to be explicitly updated unlike native apps as they get updated automatically when connected to the internet. They are updated the moment they are loaded in the browser. This also saves the data to a large extent. So, there is no need for approval from the play stores, unlike the native apps.

Enhanced market reach and SEO friendly:

Since PWAs are accessible everywhere, they can reach a wide range of audiences at once. The business owners don’t need to launch mobile apps on different platforms like Android and iOS. They can be accessed on both Android and iOS devices through a browser. PWAs help to boost the page views. They enhance the mobile traffic, increase the engagement of the users and also hike the conversion rates. They lower the bounce rates. They enhance the accessibility and search ability of the app. 

Final Thoughts:

The future of Progressive Web Apps is bright. PWAs are time-saving and cost-effective options as the developers don’t need to write three code-bases for iOS, Android and the Web separately. They eliminate the need to install or download an app from the play stores while saving the efforts of the users. They are responsive to any screen sizes.

With so many practical benefits to offer, more and more companies are moving towards progressive web apps development. There are some challenges too, but their benefits surpass these challenges.

Develop your progressive web app with Biz4Solutions, a reliable technology partner. It is a leading Texas-based web and mobile app development company having 8+ years of experience with global clients. Get in touch with us to know more.