by Sydney Stone
If you’ve ever heard the old saying “fail to plan, plan to fail,” then you probably understand the importance of having a carefully prepared approach for any type of development project.
In today’s constantly connected Internet of Things environment, every new web application needs to be built for speed and built for ever-increasing traffic numbers. When you hear stories about retail brand websites crashing on Black Friday and consider how much money they lose every second they’re down, you start to see why scalability is such an important aspect of development.
Here are five ways to make sure your web development project is ready and willing to scale in the years to come.
1. Design primarily for the mobile experience.
According to Google, 53% of mobile users will abandon a site that takes longer than 3 seconds to load.
Given the fact that people spend more time on mobile devices than actual laptops or computers, it’s important to design and develop with that end in mind – the complete mobile experience.
2. Keep your head in the cloud.
When it comes to choosing a hosting platform that provides the highest level of scalability, you have to choose the cloud over an on-premise solution. Of course, you would have more control over the latter, but each expansion and/or upgrade would cost a lot more time, effort, and money.
Unless you’re a massive enterprise with an unlimited development budget, the cloud (or at least a hybrid option) is always going to be the best bet.
3. Be responsive.
There was a time when all websites were designed with an 800×600 screen resolution in mind. Those days are long gone.
Today, a developer has to consider tablets, gaming consoles, smart TVs, watches, and all the various screen sizes of mobile phones, laptops and desktops. Responsive web design (RWD) is now a must in every aspect of web development.
4. Keep security top of mind.
Developing a web solution that focuses on both scalability and security can be quite challenging, especially given the fact that we’ve already recommended going with a cloud hosting environment, even when an on-premise solution is obviously a more secure option.
However, with the increasing interest in blockchain and cryptography tools, the cloud is slowly but surely becoming a much more secure hosting option. By planning and developing your web application with blockchain in mind, you’ll be able to offer not only a more scalable and secure solution, but a more capable and modern one as well.
5. Plan for the worst.
No matter how well you plan for a scalable web application, you should still have a contingency program built-in. If the app experienced an unexpected amount of traffic at anytime that caused it to crash, what pre-designed features are there to analyze the problem, reboot and get it up and running again as quickly as possible?
These five steps are just a few of the ways you can set yourself up for success when developing web applications. The key is to begin with the end in mind and brainstorm all of the things that could possibly go wrong. Start with a well-crafted strategic plan that you’ll adapt along the way and you’ll find your success inevitable.
Sydney Stone | freelance writer & editor 