Modern websites = large amount of data + highly interactive user experience
Modern day websites are complex. They are designed to handle large amount of data retrieved from a database or from users. They also need to be highly interactive in order to provide smooth user experiences. With high speed internet connection made widely available to public, people expect to have even better user experience when visiting a website. This could be challenging for some of the mature websites that have been around for a while. There are many ways to address this concern and utilizing single page application (SPA) approach would be one of them.
What is SPA?
SPA stands for Single Page Application. Its name has already disclosed an important character of the application. It has only one page and one page only. So what does this mean to businesses?
Browser Blank Elimination
SPA eliminates unnecessary web page blank. Traditionally, web page are refreshed when a link/button is clicked. This cause the browser to go blank for a very short period of time. This was not an issue until we started loading large amount of information onto the website and ask for more rich interaction. The blank annoys people and slows down the workflow.
Highly responsive behavior
SPA is highly responsive. It uses everything that’s already available on the web page and only loads new information when necessary. So your browser doesn’t need to spend time displaying the entire page again and again. Instead, it only retrieves new information when needed. For example, if you have a web page that contains many tabs and each tab has its own set of information or process flow, you either will perience a long wait time when the page first displayed or many short pauses when accessing each tab. This is because browser needs time to display every single detail of the page all at once or the page is partially loaded. SPA can eliminate the those wait time by reusing the existing page detail and refreshing only new information into the page.
Better user experience when going offline
Most websites are designed with an assumption that it is always online. Therefore, data retrieval has not been a big issue. However, when you lost your internet connection or you have an unstable/slow connection, you might find it difficult working with your website. SPA provides a better experience when dealing with lower bandwidth and loss of connection. Because SPA reuses web page details and store information temporarily on your browser, it can still provide some service even when offline. With a proper design, it could easily deal with unstable/slow internet connection and still allows users to finish their work.
Embrace browser back button
Many of us have experienced this quite often especially when going some sort of registration process. We are often told that DO NOT USE BACK BUTTON. If you accidentally do so, you might end up starting all over again. Or sometimes, you might have an inaccurate record created. This could create more unnecessary clean up work or rework. SPA is designed with the back button in mind and users no longer need to worry about it.
Better experience = more gain (in various ways)
Adopting SPA approach allows your application to provide better user experience, and better performance. Better user experience could help retain customers. Better performance could help boost revenue generation.
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