What are the best practices for web development ?

The implementation of a complex web project requires respecting certain rules and good development practices. It must be based on a strategic approach and a technical reflection. In addition to defining the project’s objectives, it is essential to become familiar with web norms and standards. Indeed, these have an impact on the performance and security of your project. In order to help you, we propose in this article to discover what are the good practices of web development.

 

Why is it necessary to respect the good practices of web development ?

The development of a software or an application basically answers a specific need of the company. This project must above all serve your digital projects and the realization of your objectives. The ideal is the use of custom development based on modern and agile technologies. The expertise of Castelis allows you to meet the major challenges of web development :

• Cybersecurity: by respecting the good practices, the security gaps are absent. Your data is preserved and you are safe from possible cyber attacks.
• Produce a customized, high-performance solution that allows you to achieve your goals.
• Digital sobriety that allows you to reduce energy costs with eco-designed solutions.
• Cost control : a well-framed and strategically managed project determines the technical requirements and the overall budget.

 

The technical framework of your web project

Your project must be defined by a rigorous framework. Whether it is a website or an application, this framing must be both strategic and technical. To do this, you must define your strategy and technical aspects clearly.

 

Planning of objectives

The planning of your project must include all strategic aspects. It is mainly the marketing aspects that need to be determined with concrete objectives. For this purpose, it is necessary to :

• Clearly define your target: the user of your site or application to understand and meet their needs.
• Define what results you want to achieve with the help of KPIs (performance indicators).
• Adapt the project to the user’s interactions with the required technical adaptations.

For example, if you want to create an e-commerce site, the design of the latter requires setting up these different elements :

• Delivery methods ;
• Payment intermediaries;
• Integration of taxes during payment;
• Transfer of orders to the logistics department;
• Creation of special offers.

All these elements must be anticipated and defined before the actual web development phase. They will guide the work of the developers and allow them to make the right technical choices.

 

Choosing the right computer language

The understanding of the different programming languages allows to develop your web or mobile project by making the best choices. To do this, you need to :

• Choose the right framework, i.e. the best infrastructure: Angular, ReactJS or VueJS for a Javascript frontend, Symfony for a PHP backend, .NET, etc.
• Choose the right database for the dynamics of the site, with DBMS such as MySQL, MariaDB or SQL Server.
• Choose the right CMS if you want to set up a content management system.

The choice of the hosting solution and the right environment

You can host your software or application on an internal server. In this case, the maintenance and the security of the data must be done by an internal team. You can also choose a cloud computing solution. In this case, a service provider takes care of the technical part. In addition, this cloud solution allows you to develop high-performance projects in a secure environment.

The choice of this environment is crucial. Rather than developing on a local site, plan several development environments with a delivery process that follows the following order :

• Locally on the developer’s workstation;
• Internal acceptance environment ;
• Pre-production environment;
• Production environment.

This process must follow a precise methodology: code review, Pull request/Merge request, versioning of deliveries, rollback procedure, etc.

 

Web development best practices: norms and standards

In order for the site to comply with web development standards, compliance with standards and best practices is essential.

 

W3C standards

The W3C, or World Wide Web Consortium, is an organization that defines the rules of accessibility to the web. The objective is to have standardized norms that give access to a site everywhere in the world, whatever the device or the browser used. These rules are therefore the same for developers around the world. It is mainly about the respect of HTML5, HTML, XHTML, XML, CSS, etc.

 

Other standards to be respected

For good code readability, efficient maintenance, optimal security and good web performance, other standards must be respected :

 

• The organization of the files and the project tree. The tree structure must correspond to the computer language and the framework used. The files are separated in several directories according to their objectives.
• The naming of the files in classes, variables, functions, etc., implies an immediate and fast identification of the elements. This is also useful for the content: the SEO of images should be optimized with an appropriate name.
• Code indentation guarantees the readability of the code for other developers so that they can clearly understand choices and features. It refers to the presence of tabs and spaces in the lines of code.
• Comments are specified so that any developer can understand the purpose of the lines of code more clearly.
• File size and features : code optimization is useful for reducing the size of large files. Segmenting features in the code allows developers to better identify them.
• UX/UI in the design. It must be adapted to the user experience : all the details must ensure the usability and navigability of the site. Attention must be paid to forms, buttons and more globally to the user path. For this aspect, calling on a UX / UI designer is essential because the adoption of the tool by the users depends on this step.
• Site safety is a major concern that depends on technical aspects. To avoid any cyber attack or data leakage due to security flaws, system updates must be regular. Scanners are able to spot the flaws and correct them to avoid any intrusion.
• Site performance impacts your business. Optimizing the display, making customer journeys more fluid is key to retaining users and encouraging engagement.

 

Green IT : a responsible development method

Energy efficiency and the environmental impact of digital technology are at the heart of companies’ concerns. Adjustments are needed to design greener sites and applications.

This is the objective of Green IT. It is a mode of responsible web development. Thus, the good practices of web development are enriched with eco-design solutions. A trend that is bound to develop to match our needs for digital solutions to the preservation of the environment.

 

Need more information or specific support ? Contact-us, Castelis’ custom development experts are at your disposal.