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7 Reasons to Сreate Single-Page Applications

Posted on by in Web Development

Do you need a quick yet effective solution for your business? Many companies these days tend to realize the importance of providing the best user experience and employing modern software development strategies in order to achieve their business aims. Consequently, the creation of single-page applications is becoming a popular trend as a SPA model offers a large number of benefits for business owners and websites.

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A single-page application (SPA) is a web app that consists of only one page. The app dynamically rewrites the current page instead of loading new pages from a server. A SPA presents information effectively as the user experience is not interrupted between subsequent pages. This fact makes an app similar to a desktop application.

SPAs are faster than usual web apps because they perform their algorithm not on the server but in the web browser itself. When the initial page is loaded, the information is sent forward and backward instead of the whole HTML. So there is no need to create native apps that can be used only on particular platforms or devices. Native apps are not necessary any more except for cases when you have specific business goals and want to develop solutions for definite platforms.

The Reasons to Build Single-Page Applications

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1. Single-page apps can be used separately from the hosting and launched from any device.

2. In general, SPAs provide a better and smoother user experience.

Very often users complain about being forced to follow multiple links to obtain the necessary information. With single-page applications, the only thing a customer has to do is to scroll down which is especially convenient for mobile users.

In addition, SPAs allow accessing the page even without or with a bad internet connection. In other words, it’s possible to work offline. Moreover, single-page applications are very interactive and are similar to feature-rich desktop or mobile applications.

3. SPAs are easy to develop, deploy, and debug.

4. One of the most significant advantages of SPAs is their high speed.

SPAs are a great deal faster than usual sites as they are able to load new information into one page upon request instead of having to link to a number of other HTML pages within a site. So a page or a part of it is loaded dynamically within a shorter period of time.
A single-page application is much easier to use as it provides immediate access to all the information and functions.

5. SPAs can be converted into mobile apps without rewriting the backend code.

6. Single-page applications can efficiently cache any local data.

SPAs have to request data from the server only one time during the initial download. After that users can access them even being offline or having a bad internet connection.

7. It’s possible to facilitate and accelerate the process of SPA development by using JavaScript UI frameworks.

But alongside these vivid benefits of creating SPAs for business purposes, there are also some minor shortcomings of SPA development. Let’s shed light upon them.

Possible Disadvantages of SPAs

1. Security Problems

Single-page applications are more exposed to cross-site scripting assaults. There are two possible scenarios of hackers’ attacks. The first case is when developers don’t pay attention to what kind of data is included in the initial page load. In this way, they can send data that shouldn’t be shown to everybody. And another reason for SPA insecurity is the absence of access control at the functional level.

2. SEO Optimization

Many people believe that SPAs provide poor SEO optimization because they run on JavaScript and download data upon request from the client side. The URL address doesn’t change and there are no unique URLs for different pages. It’s difficult to optimize SPAs for search engines because search bots can’t scan the majority of pages.

The good news is that Google has started a new project to improve SPA SEO optimization. Google began to record dynamic pages. So developers should verify that Google can index their JavaScript files and that an app uses HTML5 mode in the URL scheme.

3. Browser History

SPAs don’t save users’ actions. So when visitors want to go back, a browser takes them not to the previous state in the application, but to the preceding page.

To overcome this issue, developers should equip their SPA frameworks with an HTML5 History API which gives access to browser navigation history with the help of JavaScript.

Despite the above-mentioned disadvantages, single-page applications are still a good option for creating dynamic platforms with small amounts of data. Moreover, they are quite easy to develop and operate. A standard application usually consists of input, output, and controls. It’s a common tendency to use ready-made APIs for web app development. An API (application programming interface) is a set of protocols, routines, and tools for building software applications. It allows configuring how all the different components of the program should interact effectively. JavaScript UI libraries contain APIs that can help you create single-page apps in the shortest time possible and with minimum efforts.

One of the examples is Webix UI library. It includes a variety of visualization, data, control, navigation, layouts, windows and popups widgets. If you want to unite all the diverse UI components and create a perfect single-page application that works with big amounts of data, you can utilize the combination of Webix UI framework and Webix Jet. The UI library deals with lots of data in the most productive way – with dynamic grid rendering. Webix Jet is a lightweight microframework that was specially built for developing data-heavy single-page applications. The combination of Webix UI and Jet is a perfect way out when you need to develop a business solution quickly and efficiently.

Webix Jet significantly accelerates the development of single-page web apps. Roughly speaking, you need just about 30 minutes to create and release aSPA.

The Benefits of Using Webix Jet for SPA Development

  • The use of Webix Jet allows reducing labour efforts and working hours spent on the development of single-page apps by about 10%.
  • It’s good at the proof-of-concept stage. With Webix Jet you can create a prototype of your future product and see the possible result. It might be a good idea for startups that are in need of quick prototypes to show to their future investors.
  • Webix UI and Jet provide responsive out-of-the-box design for an app.
  • The principles of the mobile-first approach are applied.

Conclusion

A single-page application can be an excellent solution for your business as it provides great performance and seamless user experience. If you want to save time and create a high-quality single-page application, the use of ready-made UI solutions that JavaScript libraries and frameworks offer is a go-to solution for you.

Author: Oksana Karavai
Oksana Karavai is a professional writer for Quertime.com.

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