Useful Techniques To Simplify Web Application Architecture
More and more applications are being offered online and
, as a result, tough competition calls for applications that are simple and easy to understand. It's such a fast-paced world out there and people are looking for online applications that can let them do tasks with the least amount of work and time.
What makes a web application user-friendly is good architecture. Here are a few helpful tips to lay out a web application in a simple but effective way:
Keep the user interface clean and simple. Limit the controls you display on the interface of the web application so as not to clutter the area and confuse the user. The fewer the options are on a page, the easier it is for a user to scan and look for what he or she needs. However, this doesn't mean you have to limit the functionality of the application. There are ways to hide and reveal advanced features without cluttering the interface such as through the use of drop-down menus.
Ensure that the layout is flexible. While this is not applicable to all circumstances, it is a good idea in most cases to make the application scalable which will allow the main content area to adjust its size with the browser. This gives user the ability to set how large or wide their window up to a particular point.
Use the correct format for images. This may seem like a very trivial thing in web application architecture but it actually helps resolve image compression issues and therefore contributes to overall application performance. It is recommended to use the PNG format for small images such as button or footer graphics and the JPEG format for background images or other large image.
To ensure the success of the project, be strict about quality control from the start. Many application developers simply put together code just to create a working model. Demos are certainly important just like web site prototyping is in web architecture but if the code is very sloppy, then it would just result to more work down the road.
Web application architecture is indeed a complex task of making something simple for the end user. They say it's easy to write code but to make an application user-friendly, scalable and reliable is an entirely different matter. Fortunately, there are ways as shown in the tips above to help even new developers achieve this.