Beginning work

Welcome to the world of Progressive Web Applications.

In the preceding scenario, the problems your friend was describing are exactly the problems PWAs (Progressive Web Applications) are crafted to solve.

The first problem is that many users will be visiting your web page under poor network conditions. They may be a Silicon Valley technocrat on their iPhone in a coffee shop with bad WiFi, or they may be a Bangladeshi villager in a remote location. Either way, they will not stick around if your site isn't optimized for them, for everyone.

How fast your application loads--its performance--thus becomes an accessibility concern. PWAs solve this by loading quickly the first time, and even more quickly every time after that. We'll talk more about how they do so as the book progresses.

Second, the installation process for mobile apps is an obstacle for users. It means that your users need to be extra committed to engaging with your application--enough to give up storage space and time, and expose themselves to the possibility of malicious and intrusive code, and that's before they even get the chance to try the app!

What if we can provide the native app experience without the initial investment? PWAs are an attempt to bridge that gap. Again, we'll talk in subsequent chapters about how they do so, and how successful they actually are. However, these are both worthy challenges, and solving both will be a huge user experience win for our application.