First of all: do you know what SPA (Single Page Application) is? Let's put it into context so that you can really understand the advantages of this type of page that can make your company's (or your clients') daily online life much easier. Follow along with us:
In general terms, a SPA is nothing more than the evolution of JavaScript studies. Large companies such as Google and Apple began developing some practices and technical specifications years ago to optimize the uk companies email list of their scripts. The idea was more or less to isolate some codes as an attempt to create a more advanced language, which later generated the SPA as we know it today: applications that run entirely from the browser without necessarily making new requests to the servers.
SPAs are much more complete applications that work smoothly as if they were running on the user's desktop. The first to use this new technology was Google. However, currently a large part of the available applications use this model, which is very beneficial to the user, who can sometimes even navigate through a SPA even if they have lost their internet connection. Amazing, right?
The evolution of WebApps
To better understand how a SPA can be useful for e-commerce today, we cannot fail to mention how WebApps have contributed to this type of navigation. If you have been following digital developments, you will certainly remember WebApps, those sites that tried to replicate the agility and navigability of the applications we know. The attempt was basically to place all the pages of a site within the same environment to avoid, for example, the famous “refresh” or update, as if you were leaving one page and going to another, you know? And the attempt was successful and was very useful, for sure.
From there, a SPA can now, for example, optimize data usage, since they only load what has not yet been loaded during navigation, preventing the same data from being reloaded, which always affects the user's navigation speed. In a SPA, you only load what has not yet been loaded. Extremely useful, right?
In short, single-page websites exist to simplify information and focus the visitor's attention on the most important message you want them to see. Building a SPA website is indeed a very useful tool for those who want to sell a specific product, for example, avoiding abandonment at the time of purchase.
How to decide on a SPA application
We’ve previously shown that SPAs are unintentionally replacing legacy desktop applications. They’re easier to use, easier to update, and not tied to a device. And even as users gradually transition from browser-based web applications to mobile devices, the demand for complex, polished applications is already huge and growing.
So, if you’re thinking about creating your own website/e-commerce, you’ve probably heard that there are two main design patterns: multi-page application (MPA) and single-page application (SPA). And of course, both models have their pros and cons.
Before you start turning your idea into a real application, you need to answer several important questions to decide which application model is best for you. To do this, there is nothing better than following the content-first approach, which emphasizes the importance of putting the content of your website before everything else. This is because content is the main reason why users will stay or not on your website. And this brings us to the most important questions: what content do you want to present? What content do your users want to see? And, of course, what is the most functional?
These questions are mainly used to help you avoid making the mistake of creating a SPA for very long content, which would scare the user precisely because of the amount of text and information on a single page – and it is certainly not your goal to scare them, right?
The advantages of a SPA
Now that we have talked a little about the history of SPAs as we know them today, we can go into more detail about their main advantages, which are: 1) saving data when browsing (especially when browsing via smartphone; 2) avoiding changing pages; 3) agility in browsing for both the consumer and the company, because SPAs consume less server capacity.
According to front-end developer Henrique Gusso, who is currently developing this type of language at UNA, in Berlin/Germany, the web is adapting to better support SPAs, since professionals and users themselves have noticed their advantages. “The only disadvantage I currently see in building a SPA is that it requires more time and, consequently, more resources to be executed correctly. So, for small sites, it may not be the best option, but it certainly optimizes navigation in e-commerce, for example, since it avoids changing pages, that is, it prevents the user from having a greater chance of giving up on the purchase” , highlights Henrique.
The advantages of a SPA for E-commerce
Considering that in the case of e-commerce, the user-website relationship is monetary, that is, it directly aims at a sale, losing a user because of a complication on the website is exactly the same thing as losing money. Therefore, knowing how to prevent the user from giving up on the purchase is essential, and this certainly includes good navigation – which we already know that an SPA allows .