Web App Development in 2023: Everything You Need to Know

As business strategists and project managers scramble to create seamless user experiences (UX) and user interfaces (UI), front end web development teams have never been more crucial than before.

By constructing compelling front end interfaces and final products, businesses can better tap into the psychology of attracting consumers and future clients.

In this article, you’ll be fully equipped to harness front end web development teams to reinforce the quality of future projects. Stay tuned to learn more about it!

What Is Front-End Web Development?

You know, when we browsed website homepages, blogs, and online publications in the early 2000s, information was haphazardly organized.

They displayed near ancient-looking windows and website tabs of information that were densely allocated and difficult to navigate.

However, with the sharp rise in user-centered design methods and best practices in HTML, CSS, and other front-end development frameworks/languages, website layouts improved dramatically.

Now, imagine yourself today scrolling through top-of-the-line consumer-corporate websites including Amazon, Netflix, Facebook, and Google.

Notice any common features?

Seamlessly structured UI/UX web layouts with accessibility in mind.

In broad terms, the front-end of a website includes all facets and external elements that the users interact with.

Whether they’re navigating dropdown menus, using adjustable sliders, or scrolling through sections upon sections of website information, front-end web development accounts for all related factors.

At this very second in time, more than 1.5 billion active websites are shooting their best shot at designing and engineering beautified front-end UI experiences.

As a result, a combination of HTML, CSS, and JavaScript have established themselves as staple design languages in the front-end development realm.

Front-end developers will mesh a multi-layered approach of markup and programming languages/frameworks to create a front-end architecture for immersive user experiences.

Related reading: Knowing the difference between front-end vs. back-end development

How To Develop an Effective Front-End Web Project

Effective front-end developers and UI/UX projects integrate several criteria, including:

• User accessibility
• Navigation
• Compatibility with their user base/audience, and
• Sleek user interfaces

That all together to tap into the subconscious pleasures of the user audience.

In other words, front-end developers are responsible for optimizing and tailoring the sweet spot proportion of an attractive user interface.

What’s this elusive sweet spot, you may ask?

It is a practical, yet alluring, user interface that actively engages the audience using essential design elements and UX research.

In order to achieve this sweet spot, front-end developers adaptively use HTML, CSS (markup languages), and JavaScript (programming) to create the functional foundation of a sleek UI.

However, high-performing front-end devs will progressively become familiar with associative frameworks including Bootstrap, Foundation, Backbone, Angular, React.js, and EmberJS.

This recipe-like combination of front-end design languages and frameworks allows companies to create responsive pages and mobile-friendly (i.e. website content will appear the same on all devices) that reach more expansive audiences.

Front-end developers will precisely streamline this process between seamless user experience and user interface by cross-collaborating with designers and UX analysts.

Together, they create preliminary mockups/wireframes and prototypes to better visualize final user-face features and interactive elements.

All in all every surface-level detail you can perceive and digitally interact with was made possible by a front-end development team, composing a final exterior design for the user to indulge in.

Although the components of a web page unify disparate sources of media, anywhere from photographs to logos and content, front-end developers effectively compose them into a final story that both engages the user in real-time and impresses them enough to return.

What Does a Front End-Web Developer Do?

As the complexities of front-end development and UI/UX have increased drastically, the job description of a 21st-century front-end web developer has become equally as demanding.

Front-end web developers are generally responsible for implementing essential visual elements and UI designs that enable seamless interactivity and functionality with a web application.

Typically, front-end developers will actively collaborate with back-end developers and full-stack software engineers to streamline and coordinate server-side application logic as well as front-end integration.

In other words, back-end and front-end developers form the bread and butter of creating a fully capable web application with both function and form in mind.

For companies with non-specific and broad web development job criteria, the bare-minimum responsibilities of a front-end developer include the following:

• Developing novel user interfaces (UI) and user experiences (UX)
• Build and deploy reusable code, frameworks, and front-end libraries for future applications.
• Evaluate and determine the technical feasibility of UI/UX designs via mockups and wireframe presentations.
• Optimize web applications with responsiveness, scalability, clean navigation, and speed in mind.
• Aggregate user feedback and ensure that all user-level features and design methods are validated before submitting final versions to the back-end.
• Collaborate with the full-stack ecosystem; work with other team members and stakeholders to configure UI/UX designs accordingly.

Additionally, recruiters should eyeball the following technical qualifications, anywhere from HTML5 and CSS3 markup to server-side web app integration:

• Proficiency in web markup, including HTML5, CSS3, and their associated libraries.
• A rudimentary understanding of server-side CSS pre-processing platforms, including LESS and SASS.
• An actionable understanding of client-side scripting and modern JavaScript frameworks such as jQuery.
• Highly encouraged to possess advanced JS framework and library-level knowledge, including AngularJS, KnockoutJS, BackboneJS, ReactJS, DurandalJS, etc.
• Possesses a firm grasp of asynchronous request handling, partial page updates, and AJAX implementation.
• Baseline knowledge of image authoring tools, manipulation, and best practices including cropping, resizing and performing minor image adjustments.
• Familiarity with tools such as Sketch, Photoshop, or AdobeXD is an advantage.

In terms of expected supplementary requirements, junior and senior-level web developers should possess the following:

• Essential understanding of cross-browser compatibility and responsiveness issues and how to resolve them accordingly.
• Efficient use of code versioning tools such as Git, Mercurial, or SVN.
• Firm grasp of SEO principles and ensuring that front-end metadata and text will adhere to them.

Front End vs. Back End: What’s the Difference?

Although the primary differences between front-end and back-end web development may seem evident, there are grey areas of distinction.

A few that come to mind are programming-level knowledge, frameworks, and ultimately, their respective roles in a full-stack development department.

In the broadest terms, front-end refers to the client-side of a web application. Essentially the part that you interact with.

However, back-end refers to the server-side and inner-workings that allow for front-end features to function (e.g. user buttons, registration forms, messaging, etc).

As highlighted earlier, the barebones of a front-end project involve design frameworks and markup languages such as HTML and CSS that are purely client-side in nature.

Because of this, engineering departments have established themselves with a large spectrum of job descriptions, anywhere from web design to UI/UX testing & engineering.

Below, I’ve listed a brief overview of the expected job requirements and distinctions between a back-end developer and front-end web developer:

• Unless they have full-stack experience, back-end developers solely work with server-side implementation. This involves the inner guts and workings of a website, including databases and structures, servers, and user functions that are behind the corresponding UI/UX features.
• They are typically involved with security, structure, and content management. Although they may have a firm grasp of HTML5 and CSS3, it’s not their prime concentration.
• Back-end web developers integrate dynamic features into modern websites. This enables them to continually update in real-time based on database changes and new user inputs. Ultimately, this contrasts with a front-end developer deploying static sites.
• In order to deploy a dynamic back-end architecture, developers will use programming languages such as PHP or .NET for database engineering. Resultantly, they interlink servers with databases ensuring that dynamic updates are made effectively.

Examples of Front-End Job Titles

Below are several discrete examples of front-end job titles and how they interrelate with final front-end products.

• Web Designing: Perhaps the broadest job description in front-end development. Web designers could be anyone that uses markup and JS frameworks to someone with little to no language experience that uses Photoshop and Fireworks for user-facing design.
• User Interface (UI) Design: UI design typically involves visual design and sampling to create enjoyable, seamless, and well-structured user experiences. Although they are not consistently involved with programming, they typically possess a light knowledge of HTML and CSS to communicate visions and potential ideas.
• User Experience (UX) Design: In terms of pure programmatic knowledge and integration of user-facing libraries, UX designers are the mole in the group. UX designers study and research how users use websites.
• By understanding the psychology and subconscious of users, they can change and test UI accordingly.
• Front-End Developer: Front-end developers ultimately create sites without any associated back-end development or server-side features. In other words, they design front-feature sites that are primarily static (e.g. sites for restaurants, informational pages, salons, etc).
• As cited earlier, front-end developers must have a firm grasp on testing and designing with HTML, CSS, and JavaScript.

Top Must-Have Skills for an Experienced Web Developer

Although I’ve cited piles upon piles of critical job description info and key distinctions between the front and back-end development, below I’ve highlighted the top must-have skills to possess in the modern age of the front-end development world:

HTMl5 and CSS3 Markup

HTML (Hyper-Text Markup Language) and CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) are the most rudimentary building blocks of web coding and user-facing features.

If a front-end web developer doesn’t possess bare-minimum HTML and CSS knowledge requirements, their title is questionable!

Ultimately, without HTML and CSS, basic layout structures and website structures cannot be developed, resulting in plain white screen and Times New Roman text font.

However, no fear— there is good news! With HTML and CSS alone, companies and entry-level web developers are prepared to create basic static websites with a semi-pleasing user interface.

JavaScript

By layering JavaScript into your web development stack, more depth in functionality is enabled.

At a crude level, JS allows you to control and create maps that update in real-time, interactive films, and online games.

With JavaScript and its associated libraries, you can create updatable websites with responsiveness in mind.

jQuery

jQuery exists in conjunction with JavaScript as a library. More specifically, it is a broad collection of plugins and extensions that make developing with JS more efficient and seamless.

Rather than starting from the barebones and coding JS from scratch, JQuery allows front-end web developers to add ready-made elements to projects such as countdown timers, search form autocompletes, and automatically-resizing grid layouts.

JavaScript Frameworks

To put it shortly and sweetly, JS frameworks such as AngularJS, Backbone, Ember, and ReactJS provide web development teams with a read-made structure to the entirety of their JS code. This accelerates development while optimizing user responsiveness and UI interactivity.

Front-End Frameworks

CSS and front-end frameworks such as bootstrap can be effectively used as jumping-off points for faster coding, just like JS frameworks do for JS.

A Firm Grasp of CSS Preprocessors

In addition to front-end markup frameworks, preprocessors such as SASS and LESS can speed up CSS coding by optimizing functionality, format, and scalability.

Familiarity With RESTful Services and APIs

REST (Representational State Transfer) is a lightweight architecture that drastically simplifies network communication on the web, while RESTful services and APIs are the web services that communicate with the corresponding REST architecture.

To better visualize a discrete situation with RESTful services and APIs, imagine the following scenario:

You want to develop an app that shows you all your social media friends in the precise order that you became friends.

To accomplish this, a web developer could make calls to Facebook’s RESTful API to read your associated friends list and return that data accordingly.

Additional Skills

In addition to these programmatic web development skills, the following qualifications are just as essential:

• Responsive and mobile design
• Cross-browser development
• Content Management Systems and E-commerce Platform design
• General testing and debugging
• Git and version control systems
• Problem-solving skills

How to Hire a Front-End Web Developer

As companies start filling their design and front-end teams with talented developers, creating a front-end web development team can be challenging and time-consuming.

By looking out for the following UI and JS-focused requirements listed below, you’ll be able to sift through millions of potential candidates and optimize the match for your business-level needs.

• Proficiency in HTML and CSS.
• JavaScript basics
• Cross-browser compatibility
• Responsive design
• UI frameworks and CSS-transforming tools
• 2D and 3D graphics
• User Accessibility
• Graphic design and Typography
• UI/UX design
• Web template systems
• Code versioning tools and utilization

To better evaluate potential rising front-end developer candidates for UI and static websites (HTML, CSS, etc), you should gauge their responses to the following interview questions:

• “What were the most challenging compatibility issues you had to resolve?”
• “What do you think is the best way to rapidly prototype and develop web applications?”
• What are the primary goals and motivations for using the latest standards of HTML5, CSS3, and their frameworks?”

Conclusion

At this very second, companies and businesses are flocking to compete in a landscape of creating the very best UI designs and user experiences.

However, with the massive influx of potential web development candidates, startups, and already-established corporations must optimize their teams and sift through the essential qualifications to get the job done.

At Trio, you can hire senior-level front-end web developers with the most competitive qualifications in the industry.

If you are looking to outsource and ease the hiring process for an upcoming web development project, you should learn more about how to hire some of the best front-end developers with Trio!

Though many people start getting into software programming to create the next Angry Birds, emerging application development trends show that the industry has much more to offer. 

Software development is a booming market. In 2020, the application development market was valued at $168.6 billion, with the United States market alone making up approximately 30% of the total share.

The industry isn’t slowing down anytime soon. And by 2027, the market will have quadrupled in size. 
Surely, crediting mobile app development by itself with all this growth is unreasonable. 

Instead, the software industry thrives off the innovation of new and alluring advanced technologies. 

The following piece will summarize 19 application development trends that will drive the growth of the software development market, this year and beyond. Stay tuned!

1. Internet of Things (IoT) 

Remember the Disney family movie Smart Home? Maybe not. But that 1999 film was perhaps the earliest mainstream example of IoT in action. 

You can find the internet of things (IoT) in the most unlikely places. But that’s sort of the point.

IoT references physical objects that are embedded with digital technology and operate via a system network. 

Because of IoT, sensors, radio-frequency identification (RFID) tags, and other intelligent software work with commonplace items — often within your own household — to enhance your lifestyle. 

For example, while a classic refrigerator simply stores food in a cool environment, a smart fridge might use sensors to make ice when necessary or adjust its internal temperature. Some smart fridges even display interactive content. 

By definition, the internet of things is when an otherwise mere mechanical device communicates with the internet to perform a task. 

As an illustration, your smartphone in absence of a GPS to receive directional data from afar or without the algorithms it requires to identify your face in a group selfie would not be much more than a hunk of plastic and metal. 

Kevin Ashton coined the term ‘internet of things’ in 1999 (ironically the same year Smart Home was released) but it took nearly a decade for the idea to really take hold. 

Its widespread popularity thereafter is largely because Google started co-opting user data for their StreetView service. Indexing the physical world in digital space was not only sneaky, but genius. 

In the coming years, you can expect IoT to reach feats beyond what you ever thought possible. And you’ll notice IoT plays a big role in some of the advanced technologies below. 

 

2. Wearables

Wearable technology has not fallen out of fashion since the initial release of the Fitbit Flex in 2013. 

Now, Apple Watches (and other smartwatches), virtual reality (VR) boxes, smart jewelry, and Google Glass serve as prominent examples of wearable technology, or wearables.

To put it simply, wearables are electronic devices that are worn close to or on the skin. They are smart devices, much like a smartphone, but they happen to be a fashion piece as well. 

Wearables are a prime example of IoT, and fitness trackers especially, use the internet to send and retrieve relevant user data. 

3. Artificial Intelligence (AI)

Artificial intelligence (AI) refers to a machine’s ability to mirror the human mind. 

Less developed AIs cannot do much more than perform simple tasks. But more complex AIs can have a full, organic conversation with a human interlocutor. 

An example of a simple AI is a manufacturing robot or a self-driving car. These machines are built with specific criteria in mind, so their intelligence doesn’t exactly mirror the human mind, but they’re still able to do things that a traditional machine could not. 

A more advanced example of an AI would be a digital assistant. AIs like Google Assistant, Siri, and Alexa are digital assistants that can help you with a number of miscellaneous tasks. 

No doubt, the future will bring about the kind of artificial intelligence you’ve already previewed in science fiction movies: humanoid robots that can be helpful companions in and around the house. 

4. Chatbots

Chatbots tend to rely heavily on AI technology. This is because the goal of chatbots is to conduct conversations with humans to address their inquiries in a customer service model.  

Organizations embed chatbot apps into websites, mobile apps, and operating systems. 

Further, chatbots can be beneficial in numerous ways. First, they cut down on operational costs.

While your human-led team can handle customer service requests that need more hands-on assistance, your chatbot can answer frequently asked questions with a human-like charm.

In this way, chatbots also enhance the user experience, bridging the gap between your business and your clients. 

5. Augmented Reality (AR)

Augmented reality (AR) combines both real-world and virtual environments. The experience is interactive and presents computer-generated objects and other perceptual structures in one’s natural reality. 

Pokémon GO, for instance, illustrates Pokémon and other visual elements of the game within your physical landscape, augmenting reality in effect. 

Besides games, the U.S. Army is working with augmented reality to enhance the night vision of soldiers and guide them in making distinctions between enemies and friendly troops. 

In general, businesses can employ AR for marketing campaigns. The IKEA app uses augmented reality for users to test products virtually inside their homes. 

Likewise, L’Oréal has a virtual makeup app that uses AR for users to see how makeup will appear on their faces. 

6. Virtual Reality (VR)

Virtual reality (VR) is a means of stimulating a seemingly real-life experience through virtual technology. 

Video games especially have taken the most advantage of VR technology. But there are a great many industries using virtual reality from car manufacturers charting road scenarios to educators using virtual learning games.  

You’re probably already familiar with VR headsets, where movement and depth perception influence the user experience in an artificial world. 

In this way, VR takes characteristics from augmented reality in that it supplies an interactive experience that is enhanced by real-world sensations. 

7. Cloud Computing

Cloud computing is an application development trend that has been here for a minute, but every day cloud technology grows more advanced. 

Typically, cloud computing can fall under one of three advanced technologies: infrastructure as a service (IaaS), platform as a service (PaaS), and software as a service (SaaS). 

A good example of IaaS is Amazon Web Services which powers a large part of the web by hosting data centers offsite. Websites access this infrastructure through the cloud and thus have much lower startup costs. 

Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) is likely the most notorious form of CaaS although you may have never heard of VoIP before. VoIP is a method of delivering multimedia messaging via Internet Protocol networks. 

Facebook messaging, Skype, and Discord are likely familiar examples of CaaS that you’ve used personally. 

PaaS, particularly, stands out among cloud technologies. This is because it is a technology for creating applications. Google App Engine is one example of a cloud service where developers can build software applications. 

The major advantage of cloud computing, in general, is the ability to abstract services to the effect that providers can give their clients on-demand tools without onsite maintenance, infrastructure, or installing a heavyweight application.  

8. Beacon Technology

Beacon technology is a multi-faceted application development trend that’s hard to describe in few words. Beacons themselves are minuscule wireless transmitters that send low-energy emissions to smart devices. 

With bluetooth technology, a beacon can make connections with smartphones and give alerts. 

Beacons were first introduced in 2013 by way of Apple’s iBeacon. But now pretty much any smartphone can make use of beacons. 

Retailers might use beacons to notify customers entering a store of new deals. Or even track user behavior as a customer shops and push them to buy a certain product. 

Overall, beacon technology is a great ploy for proximity marketing. It’s yet another way to improve your customers’ shopping experience. 

9. Mobile Wallets

Mobile wallets provide a secure and streamlined way to make in-store payments. Mobile or virtual wallets are connected to your bank, debit card, or credit card information. 

You can use mobile wallets in turn for card payments or cash. The rise of mobile wallets has prompted some stores to go completely cashless. 

In many of these stores, the preferred cashless form of payment is not cards, but mobile apps such as Apple Pay, Google Pay, and Android Pay. 

The disadvantage of this application development trend, however, is that those who cannot use mobile payments are often left out of the equation. Sometimes patrons have phones with limited functionalities or lack a cell phone altogether. 

Naturally, the houseless population usually fares the worst in cashless stores. That said, there’s no harm in providing the option for mobile payments as an alternative to cash payments. 

And the benefits of mobile wallets are speedy, one-click, safe, and secure payments.

Note that mobile commerce and mobile wallets are not one and the same but mobile commerce can involve mobile wallets; that is, when mobile commerce utilizes mobile payment. 

10. Mobile Commerce

Mobile commerce, sometimes referred to as mcommerce or m-commerce, is the use of mobile devices to make financial transactions. 

You may look at your banking information everyday online without thinking twice or have the Amazon app handy on your phone. But you should not underestimate the splendor and convenience of handheld electronic commerce. 

Online shopping is great enough as it is, but doing so from the comfort of your smartphone elicits all the more accessibility. For this reason, mobile commerce drives nearly half of all e-commerce. 

From using mobile payments at your local store to purchasing groceries on the run, these are only a few of the merits of m-commerce. 

11. 5G Technology

5G technology has been a hot topic for years, but most people don’t know what 5G entails. 

By definition, 5G is the fifth generation technology standard for broadband cellular networks. 

Or in short, it’s how your smartphone is changing the ways you interact with people and everything else in the digital realm. 

Compared to 4g, 5G has faster speeds, higher bandwidth, and lower latency. 

As far as application development goes, you can look forward to a better user experience due to the optimized performance. 

IoT companies may also take advantage of this trend and use the perk of improved connectivity for new innovations. 

12. Cross-Platform Development

Cross-platform development enables app developers to have a greater market of consumers. 

In native development, mobile app developers can only build applications for distinct operating systems. 

For example, iOS developers who want to build a mobile app for iPhone must make another app entirely for it to be compatible on an Android phone. 

This is at least, what modern developers believe makes apps as performant and functional as they can be. 

But cross-platform development tools like Flutter and React Native promise to help developers make high-performing, fully functional cross-platform apps.

13. Foldable Devices

Smartphone companies have been unusually enthusiastic about foldable technology lately. 

Samsung is by far the most infamous manufacturer of these oddly shaped mobile devices. 

The Galaxy Fold was released by Samsung in 2019, as the first foldable smartphone available to the public. 

The perks of a foldable phone are profoundly unique. Foldable phones allow for compact storing, dual screen capabilities, and wide screen viewing for multimedia content. 

14. Machine Learning

Machine learning is a subset of AI where computers learn from experience — much like a human person — using algorithms. 

Groundbreaking research where machine learning is concerned emerged in 1962, when Robert Nealey trained his computer to play checkers. He lost. 

Now the capacity of machine learning is truly impressive. It’s used for speech recognition, medical diagnoses, and even self-driving cars.

15. Progressive Web Apps (PWAs)

Progressive web apps (PWAs) are a particular type of web app that share traits with traditional websites. 

While a standard web app is meant to be both interactive and web-accessible, PWAs tend to be static-like, similar to websites. 

However, the advantage of PWAs is that they operate much faster than a traditional web app would, enhancing the user experience. 

16. Low-Code Development

Low-code development is a development style that relies on low-code platforms. 

Low-code platforms use drag-and-drop graphical interfaces to mitigate the need for writing actual code. 

This mode of development empowers non-tech savvy business users and individuals to create the software they need without professional expertise or heavy documentation. 

17. Improved Cybersecurity for Remote Workers

Cybersecurity has always been a big deal, especially for those who work in tech. 

Remote workers especially have to pay attention to cybersecurity the most, because work-from-home networks might not be the most secure.

Data breaches are far too common, and they can be devastating for companies and consumers alike. 

But now that businesses are getting smarter, modern application development trends aid them in reducing risk. 

For example, cloud applications are great for maintaining a high level of cybersecurity. 

And on that note, blockchain is also helpful in securing transactions that take place. 

18. Blockchain Technology

Blockchain technology is not new, but it is thriving in cryptocurrency currency circles now more than ever. 

The main driving point behind blockchain technology is that you can use a decentralized network of ‘blocks’ to store data. 

Blockchain is a secure, cheap, and cloud-based solution for transactions of all kinds, financial or otherwise. 

19. Touchless UIs

Ironically, just a decade ago, people were amazed at the idea of smartphones that could respond to dirty fingers. 

Well, that’s old now. Now, the tech world is looking at the next best thing — touchless UI. 

Instead of responding to touch, these user interfaces (UI) would respond to voice or gesture-based activity. 

Touchless UIs will definitely change the game, especially for those with accessibility concerns. 

How Do API Integrations Power Application Development?

Just about every one of the application development trends above have API integrations at their heart. API integrations serve as a bridge connecting different software platforms. 

In this way, APIs power application development and they are the quintessential drivers of digital ecosystems. 

For example, in cloud computing, cloud APIs access cloud services through the web and further the deployment of SaaSmodels all around. 

Or in wearables, APIs facilitate the connection between what the user is wearing and the user’s smartphone, which will save all the important data the wearable collects. 

Even with mobile commerce, APIs integrate websites and applications with mobile payment software. And mobile wallets use APIs to enable your phone to make financial transactions. 

These are only a few examples of how APIs work. But hopefully, you get the idea: APIs are paving the way for a grand digital transformation of the modern technological landscape.

Conclusion

Make sure to watch out for these 10 application development trends that will bolster the tech industry in the coming years. 

Many of the advanced technologies you saw today have been around for some time now. But as time moves forward, their maturity will only grow deeper and unfettered potential will surface.

Do you see yourself building one of these advanced technologies in the near future? Trio can help you fulfill your vision effectively and efficiently with the best Senior Developers.

Learn how to hire qualified developers at Trio today!

Front-end technologies drive the success of almost any software infrastructure. Though back-end technologies allow software applications to run smoothly in the first place, users would hardly look twice at any software product if there was not a visually appealing graphical interface to draw them in. 

Despite traditional society often sweeping the importance of creative work under the rug, it’s become exceedingly clear just how much the world relies on artistic prowess. 

Of course, merging the interests of art with the technological innovation of the modern world leads to more pervasive outlets for both enterprises.

As an illustration, within the next decade, particularly spanning the years 2019-2029, the projected growth rate of employment for web developers and digital designers is 8%. 

At first glance, this number may not appear to be staggering, but it is twice the average growth rate for all occupations. 

Keeping this in mind, you should pay close attention to the front-end technologies that will foster successful software development for your upcoming project. Here you’ll find 11 front-end technologies to watch out for:

1. JavaScript
2. HTML
3. CSS
4. React 
5. React Native
6. Angular
7. Flutter
8. NPM
9. Vue.js
10. Ionic 
11. BootStrap

Stay tuned to learn more about each of these front-end technologies and how they can help you reach your business goals!

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What Is Front-End Development?

Front-end development comprises the part of web development that is visible to the end-user. Therefore, front-end developers are largely responsible for building user interfaces (UIs) that users can interact with.

Essentially, front-end development involves transforming back-end code into something that is easily navigable to the user via a graphical presentation. 

While back-end development mostly works behind the scenes with servers, databases, and other internal structures, front-end development ensures that you’re able to use an application or website effectively. 

Without the likes of front-end web development, you could be looking at an unsightly jumble of code right now. Instead, you have structured text with corresponding headers and an aesthetic blue theme to ground Trio’s affiliation. 

A number of critical skills go into successful front-end development. Mobile-first and responsive web design (RWD), for example, are two design approaches that seek to align design elements appropriately to different screen sizes. 

This is important to consider when you want web apps or websites to be accessible on both mobile devices and through web browsers. 

In general, accessibility, speed, and performance, are crucial objectives that front-end development aims to achieve. 

Web development, especially, requires a specific combination of core tools to build front-end behavior. Namely, HTML, CSS, and JavaScript, make up the foundation of front-end web development.

Along with several other front-end technologies, you’ll learn more about these core tools just below. 

11 Best Front-End Technologies To Use In 2022

Quite frankly, there are hundreds of front-end technologies that you can employ in your next software project. And many of them would do just fine handling the workload you have in store. But none stand out as much as the following 11 front-end technologies:

1. JavaScript

JavaScript has been around for the past quarter of a century. The programming language is well-known for revolutionizing the web due to its dynamic capabilities. 

Dynamic describes content that is susceptible to change, whereas static content is immovable. 

Before the emergence of JavaScript, the web as a whole was static in nature. A web page was simply a block of text. 

Then JavaScript came about, enabling interactivity, like scrolling, clicking, and much much more. 

Now, JavaScript is used on the majority of websites and is the base for most front-end frameworks, many of which will be briefly outlined today. 

2. HTML

HyperText Markup Language (HTML), alongside JavaScript and CSS, is a foundational web technology. 

Its basic purpose is to structure text which occurs by formatting documents for display on a web page. 

HTML5, released in 2014, empowered HTML to natively include multimedia elements as well, such as video and audio. More or less, this development eliminated the need for Adobe Flash Player and similar plug-ins. 

Every web page has HTML embedded into it as this markup is necessary for instructing a web browser how to display text, images, and other content onto a webpage. 

3. CSS

Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) denotes the styling and presentation of a document. For instance, any HTML document counts on CSS to manage the visual details of the web page. 

Layouts, colors, and fonts are all under the jurisdiction of CSS. And CSS3 — the latest edition of CSS as of 2001 — modularized CSS specifications, giving developers more flexibility overall. 

4. React

React, or ReactJS, is a front-end JavaScript library for building UIs and UI components. React was developed and is maintained by a small team of developers at Facebook. 

Today, React is one of the most popular JavaScript libraries for web development. Many major global companies use React, including Facebook and Instagram. 

React uses the classic model-view-controller (MVC) architecture. In an MVC pattern, there is a separation of concerns between the presentation layer and the data access layer. 

The presentation layer represents the view and the data access layer represents the model. Finally, the controller manages user interactions, pushing user input to the model and view so they can make updates accordingly. 

MVC is a widespread architectural pattern for UIs. But one of React’s more unique features is its virtual DOM. 

Document object models (DOMs) are application programming interfaces (APIs) that handle the way in which a document is accessed and manipulated. The DOM works with XML and HTML documents, treating them like a tree structure where each HTML element operates as an object.  

DOM manipulation can be taxing on a system when it comes to syncing changes to an entire program. Virtual DOMs are an abstraction of the real thing that developers save in memory for more efficient manipulation before synchronization.  

5. React Native

React Native is a mobile application framework, also the offspring of Facebook. Through React Native, mobile developers can build applications for Android, iOS, and a variety of other platforms from macOS to AndroidTV. 

This means that React Native is a hybrid app development platform. To be sure, the primary objective of React Native is to enable native features on multiple platforms. 

Most front-end technologies, and development tools altogether, struggle to maintain high performance when cross-platform compatibility enters the picture. 

But the very name, React Native, suggests that Mark Zuckerberg — the notorious creator of Facebook — is very confident about React Native’s potential. 

Other notable features of React Native are code reusability and fast refresh. 

Of course, code reusability refers to the ability of React Native to share code between multiple platforms. 

Fast refresh empowers React Native developers to see changes immediately as they are implemented. 

6. Angular

Angular is a TypeScript web application framework, and a reliable component of the MEAN tech stack — or MongoDB, Express.js, Angular, And Node.js.  

TypeScript is a superset of JavaScript which extends static typing, permitting stronger type safety for detecting errors quickly. 

Instead of MVC, Angular uses a model-view-viewmodel (MVVM) design pattern. An MVVM pattern also distinguishes the graphical UI from the business logic. 

But in absence of a controller, the view model notifies the view of any state changes by receiving notifications from the model. 

Besides its architecture, Angular is quite a versatile framework. You can build progressive web apps or utilize the framework with technologies like Cordova, Ionic, or NativeScripy to build near-native mobile apps. 

You can also use Angular to build desktop apps across Mac, Windows, and Linux platforms. 

Another exceptional feature of the framework is Angular’s templates which developers can leverage to create UI views rapidly, aiding the software development team in becoming more productive. 

7. Flutter

Flutter is a UI software development kit (SDK) courtesy of Google. Along with Flutter, developers employ the speedy programming language Dart and the resourceful graphic engine Skia for building cross-platform apps. 

Benchmarks demonstrate that Dart is even faster than JavaScript, and Skia works with APIs from a variety of development platforms to abstract platform-specific graphics and render native UIs. 

Naturally, these Flutter attributes drastically reduce code development time. What’s more, Flutter’s ready-to-use widgets are markedly customizable and help save time as well. 

8. npm

Node Package Manager, stylized as simply npm as a rule, is a package manager for JavaScript. 

npm is the default package manager for Node.js. Node.js is a JavaScript runtime environment, authorizing developers to use JavaScript for back-end development.

Most programming languages have associated package managers. But consider that JavaScript is used on approximately every website on the World Wide Web, and it should come as no surprise that npm is the largest software registry in the world.

With over 350,000 packages, npm is a quintessential front-end technology where JavaScript developers can share their code and reuse the code of other developers.

9. Vue.js

Vue.js is a progressive, MVVM JavaScript framework. By being progressive, Vue.js encourages incremental adoption. 

In other words, Vue.js starts developers off with only the view layer. Any other software structure should be added in with supporting libraries and packages. 

Vue.js designer Evan You created the project after using AngularJS. He decided to extract the best features from Angular and build something lightweight. 

Developers like Vue.js because it is easy to complete small projects and just as easy to scale upwards. 

10. Ionic 

Ionic is an open-source SDK for hybrid app development. Thanks to Ionic, a single JavaScript codebase could be your gateway to performant native and web apps. 

Developers can take advantage of various front-end technologies like Angular, React, or Vue.js with Ionic at the helm for building user interfaces. 

Cordova and Capacitor plug-ins play an equal part in Ionic’s dexterity. They host integral operating system features like GPS, camera, flashlight, etc. 

Packaging app development within Cordova or Capacitor bridges simple UI building with extensive native tooling.  

11. BootStrap

Bootstrap is a CSS framework with design templates for typography, forms, buttons, navigation, and similar interface modules. 

You can think of Bootstrap as a toolkit for building the front-end of responsive sites with ease and speed. Themes and icons come equipped with Bootstrap's pre-built components. 

To add, Bootstrap is mobile-first, meaning design is catered to mobile devices which has far more restrictions than web development. Thus, developers can expand design to fit the web rather than the other way around. 

Conclusion

Front-end development is a non-negotiable component to building nearly any software. Whether or not you know the ins and outs of software development, front-end technologies will play a big part in the product you will ultimately release to an eager client base.

Using the right front-end technologies will determine how you will fare in the market. Utilizing JavaScript, CSS, and HTML is a must for front-end web development, but what other tools will deliver your project where it needs to go?

Take a good look at the front-end technologies summarized in this piece, and choose wisely. Remember that all of these front-end technologies depend on qualified front-end developers for effective use. 

Trio is here to bring you the best senior front-end developers. Learn more about hiring front-end developers at Trio!