There are plenty of web development trends to stay abreast of but here are three that we think really matter and really make a difference. We’ll start off covering client hand-off and how it’s an increasingly important way to differentiate yourself from your competition. Then we’ll talk about how low code is here to stay. Finally we’ll talk about the importance of being early to accepting cryptocurrency payments.
The hand-off to your client
With the increasing ease of development, competition in the marketplace, and improving technical know-how of your customers, a seamless customer delivery experience has become one of the most important web development trends. Easier development tools have made it so that in some fields, especially webdev, your ability to produce what the client asked for is becoming less and less of a differentiator. With a more level playing field being able to deliver what your client needs not just today but years into the future is key.
Some key ways to improve client hand-off are:
Imagine yourself in your client's shoes, what are they going to need to manage themselves on their website? Is it easy? Do the options they have meet their business needs?
What are your client's customers going to need? Are you delivering not just what your client expects but what their customers expect as well?
Follow-up with your client. Check in a week and a month after delivery, is everything working well for them? Is there anything that they would change now that they've had some time to get used to the software or website?
If it's a customer-facing software (like a website) then try it out yourself after hand-off. Did any links break? Are there any new rendering issues? If there's functionality (like a shopping cart) go and try it out just before checkout, does everything still work? If you find any issues that weren't there before your client is going to appreciate you catching them early rather than a customer.
Low code is here to stay
Low code platforms were once much maligned, often over promising, and rarely delivering. It seems that ever since HyperCard and WYSIWYG editors from the late 90s that the promise of low and no-code platforms is just around the corner but never to arrive. However today that promise has snuck up on us and is gaining steam. So much so that we might not notice that large swaths of the web are created in low and no-code editors, and it's not just weekend-warrior hobbyists, professional teams are using a variety of solutions to improve and streamline their workflows. Today, according to Gartner, low-code platforms are a nearly $14 billion business, and expected to grow by leaps and bounds in the near future. So if low code technologies aren’t in your toolbox yet it’s time to start evaluating them, as this is one web development trend you should not be missing out on.
Blockchain payments
Cryptocurrency is here to stay, its adoption has the very same hockey stick curve of other massively impactful technologies before it like email, web, and smartphones. Yet despite this few websites offer payments in these technologies yet and it remains one of the most under-appreciated web development trends. Even fewer take advantage of rapid low-fee networks like the Lightning network. For almost any service, and especially any website, the sooner you adopt these technologies the more of an edge you're going to have on your competition.
The cryptocurrency space is very new, so there's some things to keep in mind when evaluating payment solutions:
There's thousands of cryptocurrencies out there, it might be tempting to accept them all, or at least a lot of them. But the truth is they're very poorly differentiated and few of them have enough users or interest to justify offering as a payment option.
The big one is Bitcoin which has the lion's share of the market. Ethereum is the next largest at about 1/3rd of the size.
You can accept cryptocurrency without having to handle it yourself. There are plenty of payment processors out there, such as our BitPay integration, and Open node which you can enable through Velo.
No matter the provider you choose you (or your clients) can still get paid in dollars or whatever their local currency is. This is about adding options for your customers, not creating hassles for yourself.
Payments can be faster and with lower fees than a credit card using new "layer 2" networks like Lightning, which some payment providers support today.
