In 2023, we saw the emergence of new technologies and trends like AI Chatbots, the growth of existing tools like Serverless Architecture and PWAs, and the dwindling of older technologies.
In 2024, we expect a lot of these trends to continue. So, in this post, we will explore 10 trends that we think will be important for 2024, how you can ride that trend, and approximately how long it’ll take you to learn the required skills so you can stay ahead of the curve.
1. Adding AI functionality to applications
Over the last couple of years, tools like ChatGPT have become increasingly popular and have been used more and more by marketing teams to help with content creation on websites, for both copy and images, to accelerate their production.
In 2024, we think this popularity will continue to grow with custom AI-powered chatbots replacing more traditional support methods like support portals and documentation pages when customers need assistance. This means developers will need to learn and become comfortable with using and interacting programmatically with LLMs to add this functionality to their apps.
How to ride the trend
Familiarize yourself with the various AI platforms and offerings as well as their APIs and SDKs to allow you to integrate them with your products during development. A great place to start for this is the documentation of AI platforms like OpenAI.
Time to learn: For basic competency, 1-2 months
2. AI-based Developer tools
Some of Cursor.sh functionality.
There is an increasing trend of using standard developer tools that have AI built into them as a core piece of functionality. Cursor (IDE) and Raycast (Launcher) are both tools that help you be more efficient by utilizing AI to help you perform day-to-day tasks like debugging code faster. IDE extensions like GitHub Copilot have also increased in popularity by writing code for you, with detailed suggestions, helping you improve both your efficiency and effectiveness.
How to ride the trend
Pick up some of the mentioned tools, try to integrate them with your current workflow, and see how they can help improve your workflow and make you more efficient in your daily tasks.
Time to learn: 1 week
3. Serverless Architectures
Cloud providers like AWS, GCP, and Azure are reporting increasing adoption of their serverless services every year, so it looks like serverless and cloud architecture adoption rates won’t slow down any time soon. While there are multiple reasons at play for this growth, it’s likely Serverless architectures are experiencing this growth because they remove a lot of the headaches involved with traditionally managing and running a backend service by removing the need for you to manage a server.
This popularity is also furthered by the continued growth of applications needing to run backend services, for example, SaaS apps. So, overall, serverless architecture is making backend functionality available to more and more people, especially via meta-frameworks like Next.js that run serverless functions for their backend functionality (for managing Authentication, Authorizations, or performing API calls).
With all of this growth in adoption and continued popularity, it means there is no time like the present to get on board with one of these cloud platforms and learn the serverless services they offer.
How to ride the trend
Invest time in learning how to use one of the various serverless services on offer from the cloud providers we mentioned before (AWS, GCP, or Azure) as well as how to implement them in your applications.
I personally recommend AWS as it has the highest market share at present and has extensive documentation, which makes it a great starting place. And, if documentation isn’t how you’d like to learn, you can always follow along with some of the many community-made tutorials that developers (including myself) have produced.
Time to learn: 1-2 months for basic proficiency and knowledge.
4. Jamstack
Jamstack has been around since 2015, and it has been growing year over year ever since. 2023 was no exception, as shown in Netlify’s State of Web Development Report, where static site generator usage soared. In 2023, the adoption of Jamstack grew by +30% amongst developers. 2024 is quite likely going to be similar, and Jamstack services and products will continue to rise in popularity and usage. All of this means now is a great time to get on board and learn this exciting architecture.
How to ride the trend
Investigate using Static Site Generators like Next.js and Gatsby, as well as Headless CMS providers. If you’re keen to get hands-on, why not learn how to build a blog with Next.js and Prismic in this tutorial? Or, if you’d rather spend some more time learning about Jamstack, check out this post.
Time to learn: Basics can be learned in under 1 month, but allow 2-3 months for proficiency
Deliver a fast website with a visual page builder!
Prismic is a headless solution with a visual page builder for your marketing team to release pages independently.
5. Animated UI and engaging UX
Animation example from Framer Motion.
With the average human attention span dropping by almost 25% from 2000 to 2015 to an average of 8.25 seconds, it’s vital we create more engaging interfaces with animations and transitions to keep users engaged and on our websites. This is furthered by the increasing popularity and proliferation of web development animation tools and libraries like Framer Motion that make it easier than ever to add smooth transitions, animations, and 3D elements onto your websites to captivate users and audiences, which has become increasingly popular over the last few years looking at sites like Awwwards.
How to ride the trend
Practice using some of these libraries and tools like Framer Motion to help build your knowledge and skills around making more engaging websites. And, if 2D animations weren’t challenging enough for you, why not take your skills and websites to the next level and follow along with our Three.js tutorial to make some awe-inspiring 3D animations?
Time to learn: Basic proficiency in under 1 month
6. Dark Mode
Example of Dark/Light mode switcher from TailwindCSS.
Dark mode has always been popular, especially among developers, but over the last few months and years, there seems to have been an increasing trend of dark mode designs becoming more popular with non-developer audiences. This trend can be seen by looking at the designs that are being provided on design websites like Dribbble and Behance, for example, showing that there is an increasing demand for dark mode, which is also backed up by findings like these!
Did you know?
According to a study by Flurry Analytics, about 82.7% of users shift to dark mode on their phones after 10 pm.
How to ride the trend
Practice implementing dark mode designs into your existing and new products, as well as experimenting with different tools and frameworks that make it easier to implement dark mode, like TailwindCSS, for example.
Time to learn: A few days to add support to an existing project.
7. TypeScript Adoption
Top languages in 2023 from GitHub’s State of the Octoverse 2023 report.
TypeScript has always been popular; its benefits and features, like improved error detection and collaboration as well as improved productivity, are incredibly helpful and are part of the reason why it’s been so popular. But, this popularity has gone up a level. As shown in GitHub’s State of the Octoverse 2023 report, the usage of TypeScript in open-source projects has now overtaken Java and replaced it as the third most popular language for open-source projects. Into 2024, there is no reason why TypeScript’s adoption will slow down as more and more JavaScript developers learn it.
How to ride the trend
Invest time into learning TypeScript and its features by implementing it into existing projects you have, as well as building new ones using it. Popular frameworks like Next.js already have built-in support for the language, so it’s easier than ever to get started.
Time to learn: 1-2 months for basic competency
8. Component-Driven Design and Development
Due to the increasing popularity year-on-year of frameworks and libraries like React and Vue, their recommendations for component-driven design and development practices are also increasing year-on-year. But, besides these frameworks and libraries recommending this type of workflow, there are actually some great reasons to follow this principle, such as improved collaboration, simplified communication, and reduced code duplication.
How to ride the trend
To really benefit from this trend, spend some time understanding how component-driven design and development workflows can positively impact your projects and how you can implement the concept in your projects. For example, you could follow this tutorial and try building a new project using component-driven design and development and see its benefits first-hand.
Time to learn: 1-2 months for proficiency
9. Headless CMSs with a visual experience
Primsic Page Builder demo.
In the same Netlify’s State of Web Development Report we mentioned earlier for Jamstack, there is an appendix showing the state of Headless CMSs in the last 12 months. This makes for some interesting reading as it shows there is an increasing demand for moving away from traditional CMSs like WordPress and moving towards Headless CMSs overall, but this observation is especially true for ones with a visual editing experience like Prismic.
How to ride the trend
Explore the various Headless CMS platforms that are on offer and practice building some new projects and integrating them with different tools and frameworks to see how they work and how they can improve your development and user experiences. A great place to get started with this is our tutorial on how to build a blog with Next.js and Prismic.
Time to learn: 2-3 weeks for basic proficiency
10. API-First Development
With the increasing interest in Headless CMSs and the Jamstack architecture overall, there is a growing demand for using API-first development. This type of development makes it easy to create bespoke applications that integrate a series of tools through APIs. This way, you can build a great mobile and desktop experience while supporting omnichannel content delivery, which has become increasingly important in the last few years.
How to ride the trend
To become comfortable with API-first development, it’s not only important to understand how to integrate APIs into web applications using Headless CMSs. It’s also very important to have a solid understanding of how REST and GraphQL APIs are built and work to serve data, as they are the foundation of the API-first model.
To get started with this trend, you’ll want to practice designing and building the APIs your product will need first before building out the rest of the application that will consume the new APIs. And, if you’re stuck on what API to build, here are some ideas you could use.
Time to learn: 2 months for basic competency
Closing Thoughts
In this post, we covered 10 exciting web development trends that are likely to grow and become even more popular in 2024. So, why not pick a couple of these trends that you are most excited by and spend some time experimenting with them over the coming days and weeks and getting started on improving your knowledge of them?
And, since we’re talking about how 2024 is the year of many new trends in web development, have you considered it could also be the year you change your git cloud provider? Why not check out our post comparing GitHub to GitLab in 2024 to see why you might switch?
Thank you for reading.
