Owing to the evolution of various web development trends, there have been new capabilities in the entire digital landscape.
Essentially, there isn’t any surprise that in this current digitally expanding world, various online websites for any particular brand or business has vitally become necessary more than merely an identity.
However, since every industry goes through perfection over literally everything with time, businesses, brands, and users also tend to carefully choose or rather they often urge on selecting high-performance, progressive websites with enhanced and improved user experience and which are certainly cost-effective simultaneously. At this juncture, Single Page Applications or SPA comes into the picture. Mobile app development services are rapidly adopting this in the current time.
Single Page Application (SPA)
Single Page Applications are essentially applications that work inside a browser and don’t require page reloading or extra time for waiting during its entire usage. It means that these applications would update the content dynamically during user connectivity without having to actually reload the entire page.
Benefits of utilizing Single Page Applications
In case you wish to develop a certain website that has a feature-rich user interface, then Single Page Applications can certainly suit your business requirements. Along with this, there are several value propositions that businesses can easily expect by the integration of the SPA approach in the entire designing of their web experience.
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a. Improved Responsiveness
It is one of the aspects of the web design which can easily make or even break a business idea, especially if it’s a newer one. As Single Page Apps update only a certain part of the content on the entire web page, the actual server payload remains quite lighter. It considerably improves the entire loading time and certainly makes the entire user interactions seamless. It is essential for enterprise mobility solutions.
b. Better User Experience
SPAs support increased and improved user interaction with multiple sections of the web page such as menu selections etc. It is because SPAs completely eliminate the requirement to constantly reload a particular web page. It results in a much more user-friendly and seamless native-like browser experience.
c. Enhanced Features
SPAs make it quite easier to create a feature-rich web application. For example, with the assistance of SPAs, you can easily create a content editing web app with real-time analysis. However, the same app, which is developed through conventional methods, will need to undergo an entire page reload for content analysis.
d. Easier and Simpler Navigation
When it comes to the transition of Single Page Apps to mobile apps, it can easily be carried out by simply reusing the entire same backend code. Along with this, there are different development frameworks like jQuery, Sensa Touch, etc., which assist in resolving any difficulty in the transition to a mobile application such as adjusting UI layout to that of a smartphone screen. Such a feature is vital for enterprise IT solutions.
e. Better Visibility and Readability
In case you Single Page Apps, basically, you can be entirely sure of visually appealing and aesthetically beautiful website design, it can easily act as a major factor in attracting the interest of users to the website, greater traffic, and hence result in higher conversions for the business.
f. Offline Support and Cache
SPAs, as a website development framework, assists in the webpage to remain functional without any internet connectivity. They use cache quite effectively as it stores all of the local data that it receives when it regularly sends a single request to the server. Hence, it then utilizes this data to work offline easily. In case of poor connectivity, this particular local data is duly synced with the server in case the connection allows. It is vital for enterprise application development.
g. Linear User Experience (UX)
These apps offer its users with a simple linear UX or user experience with quite a clear beginning, along with the middle as well as the end layer. The users don’t have to go on clicking the different links. Rather, they can easily utilize the parallax scrolling as well as transitions present in a SPA and hence enjoy a seamless customer journey. Also, this particular feature of SPA makes it quite the best option for those users that are used to scrolling through different mobile apps.
h. Streamlined and Simple Development
The entire development process for a SPA is quite simple as well as streamlined as the requirement to write the codes to render different pages on a particular server is duly eliminated. It means that the entire development of the SPA can easily be kick-started with the overall development of a file even without the actual utilization of the server.
i. Easier Debugging
Since SPAs are developed utilizing frameworks such as React as well as Angular, these can easily be debugged using different popular browsers such as Firefox or Chrome. Along with this, one can easily investigate different web page elements, also monitor network operation, and even keep a check on page’s associated data.
With all of these benefits of Single Page Applications, there are few downsides too. Let’s have a look at them.
Negative Aspects of Single Page Applications
1. SEO Optimization
Various search engines, such as Google, actually rank websites based on the total number of pages it actually has. Since Single Page Applications simply load a single website page at a given time, hence a website developed utilizing the SPA framework may actually suffer from low rankings.
2. Overuse of Browser
Browser resources are utilized extensively in the case of Single Page App. It is due to the fact that in the case of SPAs, most of the tasks are actually done by the browser itself. Hence, to develop SPAs, users need the latest browser with support for the latest features.
When with these shortcomings, the SPAs actually prove to be the best possible option in creating dynamic websites with a smaller volume of data. Also, with SPAs, you can easily complete any task which a conventional multi-page application can actually perform, but the same isn’t the same with the multi-page applications. An Android app development company has to take this into account.
Use Cases of Single Page Applications
Single Page Application allows the development of an arranged, controlled, and effortless UX, which keeps web complexity right at bay. Also, it assists in keeping the user on a particular web space where the entire content is presently easily and simply. Essentially, there are a plethora of examples of SPA build apps around the internet which we use in our daily life. Google, Maps, Gmail, Facebook, GitHub or Twitter, etc.
- Gmail- Certainly, you have noticed that working on Gmail actually has minimum disruptions. It is because the Gmail SPA duly performs various simple functions like sending emails, managing them, and saving drafts. Also, browsing the application doesn’t need reloading multiple pages, as it doesn’t even send you to a completely new page every time you perform any action. Hence, the integrity, as well as the seemingly flawless response of this particular app, make it quite an easier interface for better navigation with no issues.
- Google Maps- Utilizing Google Maps, almost any person with a computer can easily find a way to the destination with quite a little effort. Also, you can search for new locations on the actual map, change places. It is a fully customizable SPA with various useful functions that have quite an extremely friendly UI that allow you to easily navigate.
- Instagram and Facebook- SPA is great for building Responsive websites that support desktop, mobile, and tablet. It even power apps that you generally use like Instagram and Facebook. Hence, it provides a faster as well as an immersive UX. Only a few actions actually lead to a change of URL, and in most of the cases, the clicks on the Facebook page only lead to dynamic content on the page.
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Even though SPAs provide users with quite a superior user experience, but it also needs to be noted that it has certain pitfalls such as memory leaks, heavy client frameworks that make downloads slower, a lot more security concerns in comparison to conventional applications.
Key Features of Single Page Application
Mentioned below are a few of the key features offered by a SPA.
1. Absence of Server-Side Roundtrips
Essentially, an SPA is able to easily redraw any particular part of the client UI without actually needs a full server-side round trip to easily retrieve a complete HTML page. It is generally achieved by the implementation of a design principle called Separation of Concerns, which means that the data will essentially be separated from the entire data presentation utilizing a model layer that will essentially handle the former and a new layer, view layer will read from the latter.
2. Better Routing
A good SPA is quite able to keep track of the current state and location of the user during its entire navigation experience utilizing organized JavaScript-based routers. It is generally accomplished in either of the two ways, which are the Hashbang technique or simply the HTML5 History API usage.
3. Flexibility and Performance
A better SPA generally transfers all of the UI to the client, owing to the JavaScript SDK of choices such as jQuery, Angular, or any such. It is good for network performance often, as increasing offline processing and client-rending reduces the overall UI impact over the entire network. Also, the flexibility granted to the UI is the main thing as the developer will be quite able to completely rewrite the entire app frontend with almost no impact on the entire server-side, leaving aside few static resource files. It is a must for enterprise mobility solutions.
Why and When Use SPA?
Whenever you think about single-page applications, the main question that appears is when you should utilize SPAs for your entire project?
In case you are planning to create the best interaction build between the user and the application, then selecting a SPA is quite necessary. As one of the most popular apps like Google Maps essentially makes sue of SPA approach to provide real-time feel as well as experienced whenever the user clicks on the place market on the map, SPA can help offer a similar feel.
If you wish to have real-time updates on the web page, you should certainly think about this approach. It is made use of notifications, data streaming, and real-time charts. Also, single-page applications are perfect fit whenever you plan to create for dynamic platforms with quite a small volume of data to work with.
Whenever you are creating the base of the upcoming mobile app, SPAs are the best possible solution. However, poor SEO optimization can easily be considered as the major drawback of this particular development approach. But in situations where SEO optimization doesn’t actually matter, such as social networks, SaaS platforms, and closed communities, this architecture works best.
Cost to develop a Single Page Application
The cost of developing a single page application depends on the scope of the project. Is it just a landing page with quite a small contact area? Then to send a message, you will require to code some basic PHP.
Is it a giant parallax page with numerous images that need to be loaded to increase the page-speeds?
Do you need to write the entire content or even edit the images? Do you need to create the images? Do you actually require to create SVG navigations? Does it essentially have to be responsive? Does it require to have a separate dynamic website generated in PHP on the basis of screen size? And much more.
A professional web designer can charge from $30-$100 per hour.
Hence in case of the simple website which has small scope, with no external scripts along with inline CSS, can easily be done in 3-4 hours. This means you should charge $90-$400.
However, in the case of complex websites that take 50 to 100 hours, then the cost to develop such a SPA can range from $1500-$10000 if you hire app developers at the above-mentioned rate.
Conclusion
Single-page applications have so much to offer to current requirements of the businesses. With the above-mentioned features along with the pitfalls, they make a decent case for developing applications in this development approach. Also, the cost to develop a Single Page Application is relatively lower than traditional web applications.