In this hyperconnected world, there is a growing demand for creating websites that deliver and convert. Web developers, for one, create hundreds to thousands of websites every week. During the process of web development, they have to consider a lot of things, including what tools to use when writing HTML or what JavaScript frameworks to use. Unfortunately, they still commit mistakes that can harm their goals. Some of the top mistakes web developers make include.
Mistakes Web Developers Make – Browser Incompatibility
It is a common mistake to assume that your program will run on every browser. Often, developers are more comfortable using a particular browser, but their client prefers a different one. These can create a conflict when rendering code samples that work on specific browsers. Some browsers use different default values for styles. When this happens, it can result in poor quality when viewed on other browsers.
During development, it is recommended to test a web page using every browser and version to see how your code appears on multiple browsers, but this is often too time-consuming. When developing a website, use a different browser every few days. This way, you will quickly see potential problem areas. You can also use Visual Studio to help you run a test on multiple browsers to show how the page you are developing looks on each. It would also be useful to refrain from using browser-specific codes.
Creating Bad Contact Forms
Web developers commit the mistake of creating a contact form and assuming that the users will provide valid data. If invalid data is provided on the form and the received data does not match with the data scheme, this can cause your pages to fail. You don’t want that to happen.
Avoid this by stating clearly what you want users to provide. If you want their address, specify if you want a home address or an email address. Also, make sure that your data validation tactics are congruent with both the server-side and the browser side. Do not make the mistake of allowing a series of T-SQL statements to gather data from user entry without confirming that each field has the correct type of data.
Mistakes Web Developers Make – Writing Vintage HTML
Over the years, the internet underwent tons of significant advancements. These advancements often make the previous style of HTML writing as obsolete. If you are still comfortable with writing old-school HTML codes, it is time for an upgrade. You have to brush up on the latest HTML coding techniques. If you are still using   or <center> elements, you have to realize that this can cause an over-sophisticated markup that functions inconsistently across multiple browsers — not just the new Microsoft Edge browser but even on old versions of Internet Explorer. It is best to always use semantic HTML5 elements because of their accessibility. Avoid this mistake by understanding all the semantic elements available. It is also helpful if you know the markup hierarchy. In addition, use HTML as a description of the content and never how it displays. If you want to showcase your content accurately, you are better off using CSS.
Choosing Poor Web Hosting Services
Choosing a poor web hosting service is a common mistake that is common among newbie web developers. They never think about the impact of having a less-than-extraordinary web hosting service. Many newbie web developers think that having unlimited space is actually great. In reality, it is not, particularly if you are planning to do heavy coding. Before choosing a hosting service, it’s important to do some research and read online reviews. For example, this in-depth review of Hostinger lists the details of what exactly the web hosting service provides so that web developers can make the most informed decision based on the types of sites they’re creating.
Mistakes Web Developers Make – Relying on jQuery
This JavaScript library is a tool that creates an abstraction layer for DOM manipulation, animation, event handling, and so much more. The majority of developers start their front-end development thinking that jQuery is a simpler version of JavaScript. They do not know that they cannot replace JavaScript with jQuery. Depending too much on jQuery shows that you lack an in-depth understanding of essential JavaScript concepts. If you want to become a successful web developer, it’s important to learn JavaScript.
Ignoring Mobile Users
When you develop a website, it is crucial always to optimize it for mobile users. If you fail to include them in your target audience, you are missing out on reaching 5 billion mobile users. You have to consider mobile user experience when developing a website. Your web application must have seamless navigation and access to content across all device types. To avoid one of the mistakes web developers make you can use Bootstrap, a free open-source HTML, JavaScript, and CSS framework. If you adhere to Bootstrap practices, you can achieve a responsive web application with ease.
Using Bootstrap Extensively
Bootstrap is a user interface framework commonly used for website building. Many web developers use Bootstrap as a means to style a website application. While it may have beneficial uses, it is not enough to replace CSS. When designing a website, your goal is to make it as responsive as possible. To attain this, web developers must learn the fundamentals of CSS. Once well-versed with CSS, they should start working on refining their Saas knowledge.
Mistakes Web Developers Make – Missing SEO
This is one of the worst mistakes web developers make. The absence of SEO best practices on websites results from misinformed SEO specialists. Many web developers think they have the proper SEO knowledge and that they can easily incorporate it in the website. Mastering SEO is a challenge, and web developers fail to see the need for a true SEO specialist. If you want to create a maximized website, you should think about SEO as soon as you start building your site. If you postpone it in the end, you might have to rewrite the entire system.
Failure to Modularize Codes
One of the most critical tasks a web developer must make is ensuring their codes are modular. Refrain from putting all codes into one HTML file. It is also not good practice to combine CSS, HTML, and JavaScript in one file. It is best to break the JavaScript into an external file to separate functionality. JavaScript’s native components improve your project architecture, allowing you to write unit tests with more ease.
Taking Portability For Granted
Experienced web developers should always plan for portability. You cannot just assume that database connection strings, hardcoded file paths, or libraries are present on the server. When you assume that your local development computer matches the production environment, it could lead to tons of problems. To avoid this, you have to ensure that your web application can scale using a load-balanced multiple server environment. If you can, allow a single configuration file and prepare to handle exceptions when there is a difference with web server configuration.
Failing to Optimize Bandwidth Usage
Web development and testing usually occur in a local network system. Due to this, when downloading large images, you may not see any issues with your high-speed internet connection in your development area. However, the problems may occur when users try to load your website using 3G connectivity. Neglecting user experience can work to your disadvantage. If you do this, you must prepare to receive complaints and poor website ranking. When you optimize your bandwidth usage, you could get a boost in performance.
To achieve this boost, you need to do the following.
- Minification of all the CSS
- Minification of all the JavaScript
- Optimize image size and resolution
- Compress server-side HTTP
It is easy to assume that you should always have your minimum viable product (MVP) out in the market. However, this causes web development to work on their applications haphazardly. The goal of hastily providing product overlooks the fact that users are now more demanding. They would want something that they can use with ease. So, if your website does not take into consideration scaling, you’ll have serious issues. You might even have to rewrite substantial areas of your application after its launch — something web developers hate. As an adept web developer, you must consider the end-user.
One example is when you opt to keep uploading the users’ pictures on a particular web server. This practice is acceptable since it makes files to the application quickly accessible, every development platform provides file handling methods, and gives you the chance to present images as static content while causing a minimal load to your web application.
However, this may not be an ideal setup when your application grows and deals with more web servers. Even if you scale your database storage, web server, and session state servers, your scalability has the potential to fail. To avoid this, you have to put in place a file synchronization service. You can also try to spread the files across web servers. It would be easier if you utilize shared file storage or a remote storage solution from the get-go.
Mistakes Web Developers Make – Broken RESTful Patterns
Web development embraced the use of RESTful APIs. It is reflected in most web applications, whether for integrating with an external system or for internal use. However, there are still those who do not follow expected practices and commit the mistake of writing RESTful API that results in broken patterns.
The reasons for a broken pattern may include.
- The use of wrong HTTP verbs. You could be using GET to write data. When you call GET using one resource, the answer remains the same, and you will not see any changes in the application status. The reason for this is because HTTP GET’s design is to be safe.
- Failure to send the appropriate HTTP status codes. For instance, you cannot merely send an error message with a code 200 because you can only send it when there is no error from the request. If there is an error, you should send 400 or 401. You have to familiarize yourself with the HTTP status codes available today.
Mistakes Web Developers Make – The Final Word
Web developers, though they do a great job in providing a seamless web application for users to enjoy, can sometimes fail to deliver with the end-user in mind. These common mistakes can either make or break their careers. The key takeaway about mistakes web developers make: web developers must not fail to familiarize themselves with the latest applications. When you work in the IT world, a fast-paced industry where something changes every day, you have to stay abreast of new developments. Failure to do so will leave you scrambling to get ahead. Google, for one, introduces tons of changes in its algorithm periodically. You have to know and adjust to these changes when necessary.
Take a careful review of your program now and see if you have made any of these mistakes. Fix them now before your launch, so you don’t have to rewrite them. To conclude with, protect your data privacy, it’s the most important thing for any project you make!