Since WWW (World Wide Web) was coined back in 1990, static HTML pages converted into completely dynamic. Today we have thousands of resources and tools which are providing step-by-step details of web application development.
Nowadays, development environments are smart enough to catch and resolve the issues and bugs that developers battled with on daily basis earlier. Now there are many web development platforms but all of them have a common ground.
The purpose of sharing these tips is because there are some common mistakes that web developers made at different stages of the development process, and these tips can help a developer improve the strategies and techniques of development.
Here I am going to shed light on some topics like SEO, Scalability, Security, Validation, and Usability.
1- Incomplete Input Validation
Validation of inputs on the client and server sides is necessary. Most developers don’t add proper validation on both sides, which affects usability and security, and can cause improper data and error.
Proper validation on inputs will improve user experience, increase the security level, improve error prevention, give you great performance and make your data clean. Validations are really easy to set up because most of the frameworks of frontend development and platform of backend development provide built-in validation rules.
Validations might be time-consuming to implement on inputs, but they should be a part of best coding practices for every developer.
2- Ignore label tags with input
Sometimes there is a design on which there is no label only input with a placeholder. In this case frontend developers should add a hidden label, the main reason is if we talk about applications for vision-impaired people, these types of apps always try to find <label> and if there will be no label tag then input cannot be readable for these type of apps, it will affect the usability of your web page. Here are some more HTML mistakes web developers should avoid.
3- Authentication without proper Authorization
What is Authentication? It’s verification of a user’s security credentials i.e. password, the answer to security questions, fingerprint, etc.
What is Authorization? It’s confirmation of permission and access of a particular user.
In other words, authentication is “Who is Entity” and authorization is “What a given entity can do”. Both of them are required to secure data. These two provide great security and protect against brute force hacking. Without proper authorization, you risk revealing your sensitive information via a breach or unauthorized access and resulting in bad press, customer loss, and potential regulatory fines.
4- Wrong or incomplete SEO
Many web developers think that they know about SEO and they can handle it as it is not much complex, but that is not true. SEO Specialist is required to handle SEO of web pages. As their study requires time to research about best practices and ever-changing algorithms of Google, Bing, and Yahoo. Doing experiments, tracking and analysis does not mean you are an SEO specialist.
SEO is not the only adjustment of good content, tags, keywords, meta tags, alt attributes on images, site maps, etc. There is a need to get rid of duplicate content, have crawlable site architecture, efficient load times, intelligent back linking and internal linking, etc.
SEO of web pages should be scalable and you should think about it the moment you start developing your web application.
5- Ignore Bandwidth Optimization
Optimizing usage of bandwidth provides great performance, to gain this you need to do a couple of things, some of them during development and some after development. Most the experienced web developers use these tricks:
- Minify and Combine HTML, CSS, and JavaScript Files
- Load JavaScript Asynchronously
- Consider Using Prefetch, Preconnect, and Prerender Techniques
- Server-side HTTP Compression
- Optimize images (It includes size and resolution)
As a good web developer, you need to keep these things as best practices. It should be on your checklist of development.
6- Cross-browser Incompatibility
This is the ability of websites, web applications, or scripts to support different web browsers in the same manner. This is more related to the webpage’s functionality than its look, which means all the scripts must perform identically in various web browser environments. With the help of a few techniques, you can make sure that your site is cross-browser compatible:
- Simple Coding
- Add Validations
- Setup Doctype
- Keep CSS Reset Rules in mind
- Conditional Comments
- Include as many browsers in your testing
7- Writing Old School HTML
HTML evolved over the past few years, for example, earlier developers used <table> for layout. Decade’s HTML tags and techniques can affect cross-browser compatibility. Make sure to use HTML5 tags on your web page to provide a better structure. It will also help you in terms of SEO. Here are some more HTML mistakes web developers should avoid.
8- Ignore warning messages
Most developers ignore warning messages, later it might be converted into errors. Your web page should be warning-free, a good developer needs to keep this as the best practice.
9- Writing code without planning
To write high-quality and well-structured code, you need proper planning and research. With proper planning, your code will be neat and clean. If you directly start your code without thinking and planning, it will work for small projects, but for large projects, it could be a mess.
10- Not developing for different screen sizes
The growth of smartphones with different screen sizes has brought many new ways to access online content, but it also brought web development issues. The number of website visits from smartphones and tablets is growing every day, that is why web developer needs to make sure that the webpage can be accessed properly on each screen resolution.
There are many techniques and strategies to build responsive web pages. Different developers have their own tricks to make websites responsive.
Bootstrap is very commonly used for responsive web pages. By adding their pattern and techniques to your best practice, you can easily avoid responsive issues on web pages.