DockYard

Responsive web design enables people to create websites and web apps that work on any number of devices, but there’s often an assumption that the skills needed to create and design a web app can be directly translated to native applications.

Rather than offer a cost-benefit analysis, this post will breakdown the differences between native design (e.g. iOS, Android, and macOS) and designing responsive websites or Progressive Web Apps (PWAs).

Progressive Web Applications (PWAs) are becoming more prevalent as the tech world continues to invest in them. Today, Chrome and Opera fully support PWAs, while Firefox, Microsoft Edge, and Apple iOS are making strides in offering greater support for PWA technology.

This growing support for PWAs is being driven by demands from leading brands looking to make the most of their capabilities. Joining the likes of Facebook and Pinterest, which both use PWAs, Twitter recently invested heavily in making its main site a responsive PWA to create a faster user experience with an enhanced interface. Similarly, media powerhouses such as the BBC, The Washington Post, and Forbes, also have debuted PWAs to deliver their content more seamlessly across users and various device types, from desktops to mobile phones.

Imagine entering a store to purchase a mobile phone. The store signage is confusing and you struggle to find the device on the shelf. When you finally do, only the floor model is available and you can’t add it to your shopping cart.

You search for a store representative but when you find help, they’re unresponsive to your questions. Then, out of nowhere, a gnome pops up to offer you a discounted vacation in the Florida Keys.

No, this is not a dream; this is shopping online.

For many users, the above scenario is what it feels like to navigate and use an outdated website. While once the face of a brand’s digital identity, websites are increasingly difficult for end users to navigate across devices.

Everyone should be able to participate in the internet. As designers, our goal is to make a website intuitive and easy to use. But we’re realizing that we have been neglecting a portion of the population. 57 million Americans (over 18%) have some type of disability, and not all disabilities are visually evident.

This negligence is a byproduct of two things: awareness and comprehension. While web accessibility has become a broader topic among the design world, there is still confusion about specific rules. Many resources for web accessibility guidelines are full of code snippets and aren’t made with designers in mind. The accessibility of a product needs to start with design and continue through the product’s lifecycle.

Due to the last decade’s frenzy of native app demand, my early career can almost be defined by how efficiently my teams could ship iOS and Android mobile apps to the stores. But after a decade, users are downloading fewer and fewer apps, and clients are increasingly skeptical of the strategy of paying for the same product twice.

Modern developers and business owners now have a much better option for delivering the native experiences and rapidly iterated feature sets that users expect: Progressive Web Applications (PWAs).

PWAs are pushing the industry forward in terms of how mobile experiences are built, shipped, and used. As a Project Manager for a digital product development agency, DockYard, I am all in on PWAs, as well as on demonstrating to clients why they are a more sustainable investment than native apps. Here are some top reasons why Progressive Wep Apps are the smart choice: