Every year new trends come and go in software development. Many of them are fads and only a few are innovative, smart, and here to stay for the long. Whenever new trends come out of the closet, software developers always get pressure to adopt them as soon as possible.

Many new trends get popularized once large organizations adopt them. Among others, there are trends that make frontend smart, trendy, and attractive. Development trends for frontend offer significant advantages such as improved performance, growing opportunities, scalability, dynamic user interfaces, and enhanced user experience to end-users.

Another thing to consider is no matter how great impact do frontend development trends have on your company, it’s always a good practice to understand and fulfill the user needs. Keeping tabs on the changing user requirements and new trends helps you create web applications with unique and optimized frontend.

That said, let’s have a look at the top frontend development trends to watch and embrace this year.

Frontend Development Trends to Watch and Embrace

1. Headless Is The Way Forward

As per a report, the headless CMS market is expected to grow at a CAGR of 22.6% from 2020 to 2027. Headless CMS decouples the front layer of the web app from the back layer for a centralized content repository to run independently on the background while the frontend can be customized to deliver content across multiple devices effortlessly.

Such kind of CMS architecture makes a lot of sense in today’s modern-paced world and enables you with scalable opportunities and reduces operational and maintenance costs. Netflix is one of the top organizations to have gone headless for effortless content management on the front end. Following the suit, many others joined the headless architecture for personalized content delivery to increase engagement rate and sales from a segmented target audience.

2. JavaScript Is Not Going Anywhere

JavaScript is the most popular frontend development programming language for increased responsiveness. The language has been evolved since its inception and has become the most go-to language for the developer community. Every year, new libraries and frameworks based on JS are coming to light, making the language grow stronger.

Frameworks like React.JS, Vue.JS, Angular.JS, and others make Javascript a versatile language. Such frameworks are used for various purposes and help implement various requirements on the front-end of the applications. The language is responsible for the rise of multiple web applications such as Netflix, PayPal, Uber, Groupon, LinkedIn, etc.

3. Micro Frontend Architecture

A report by The Software House highlights that 24.4% of the web developers have used micro frontend architecture. Inspired by the microservices for the backend, Micro Frontend Architecture is a scalable yet cohesive solution to replace the monolithic frontend architecture. It breaks down the monolithic architecture into small component pieces to run independently on the web applications. Further, separate teams can work on those small components individually of one another.

Those teams take care of the end-to-end feature architecture for more clarity, speed, and superior user experience for the multi-threaded delivery process. With micro frontend architecture, scalable projects can be deployed independently through a concise and cohesive codebase structure. Many organizations like IKEA, Spotify, Starbucks, American Express, etc. have started to adopt this architecture type thanks to its flexibility and seamless implementation.

4. PWAs are Gaining Momentum

PWAs or Progressive Web Apps are an attempt to meet the modern user’s needs of getting an exceptional user experience across device types. They are cross-platform web apps created using emerging new technologies. Progressive web apps on mobile devices offer a native-like interface with remarkable speed and performance that’s hard to beat. For instance, PWAs of Twitter, Instagram, Uber, Pinterest, Forbes, and others cater to a large segment of users that are left out due to mobile compatibility or network-related issues.

Many small to large enterprises can embrace this trend as the PWAs can run independently of the mobile network or active internet connection. They offer a range of advantages for companies by providing a native-like experience through platform-specific features and fast loading speed. Moreover, these applications are well-secured with HTTPS protocol.

5. JAMstack’s Increased Dominance

JAMstack refers to an amalgamation of JavaScript, API, and Markup to create an architecture that works on the core principles of pre-rendering and decoupling. It helps develop high-performant, cost-effective, secure, and scalable web applications. JAMstack is fairly new in the world of front-end development. However, thanks to its flexibility, around 71% of the developers around the world have used JAMstack architecture.

Furthermore, many of the world’s renowned brands like Nike, Louis Vuitton, PayPal, and others have embraced JAMstack for their front-end of the web application. The architecture will transition your web app with up to 8X improved speed, performance, and enhanced SEO that aid in boosting revenue and ROI for your business.

6. AI and Chatbots

Chatbots have become a necessity today while developing the front-ends of web apps. They are an important part of the customer experience and support needs and help make the customer interaction more human by answering questions customers have. Since the advent of AI, chatbots have become more convenient and smarter. Many web services providers have started incorporating AI-enabled chatbots into web applications.

Chatbots eases the workload off from the customer support team by providing more comprehensive service to users for increased satisfaction. Relying only on humans for customer support requirements has become insufficient today due to the vast number of users to serve. Therefore, AI-powered chatbots have become the smart and intelligent solution that empowers the front end of your web application.

7. Server-Side Rendering

Server-Side Rendering refers to loading or displaying the web pages of an application on the server rather than on the browser. It is an ability of the application to convert HTML files on the server to present the fully rendered page on the client-side/frontend.

What this simply does is make the whole process of sending the element of the frontend to clients from the server directly instead of making them wait for the browser to do so. The benefit of this frontend development trend is it quickens the content delivery for end-users as well as for search engines, which aids your effort in Search Engine Optimization (SEO). Many of the latest software and product development frameworks like Angular incorporate Server-Side Rendering.

Summing Up

So, these were few trends for frontend development to watch and embrace this year. As the year will pass by, these trends will get adopted more and more and get popular among the frontend development community. Also, companies have pushed their boundaries to have rich user experience, scalable apps, speed, and accessibility to survive in this highly competitive market.