Application development: what's on the cards in 2023?

Developers and software engineers might have in the past been seen as “the IT guys in the dark, back room”, but as digitisation continues to spread, recent years have cast a different light on dev teams and shown just how strategic they are to organisations.

Developing software and applications has become something every organisation in the digital age has to do. But as users’ expectations grow and the digital landscape evolves, developing digital products that are fit for purpose becomes increasingly challenging.

Here are four of the most prominent areas of application development that engineering teams need to prioritise this year.

Accessibility needs to become front and centre

It’s no longer enough to build apps and features that are just functional and visually appealing — they need to be user-friendly and accessible by all. Why? Because these end-up benefiting a much wider user pool than what organisations traditionally consider.

Accessibility shouldn’t be contemplated only for those with obvious physical impairments, but should address the five major categories of disability: visual, hearing, motor, speech and cognitive.

Indeed, most people are likely to experience impairments at least once in their lives. And those vary greatly — a user may have reduced vision or simply wakes up with a migraine that prevents them from looking at a screen, or they may be a parent holding their newborn baby with one hand leaving them only one hand to use their device.

Developers are realising that adopting an accessibility-first mindset is the right thing to do. Using great free resources such as the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) can be a good start in shifting mindsets.

However, we anticipate developers to look for more education and training around the topic in the next 12 months, so organisations should also add this into their formal learning and development programs.

Secrecy and privacy: it’s not just about the technology, it’s about human skills

With hackers and bad actors becoming more sophisticated — and as more laws around privacy are drawn and enforced — developers will be thinking about the best way to protect personally identifiable information (PII).

Sure, the technology tools used to develop apps and software are key and can greatly help developers create digital products that are secure by design. But collaboration with other teams and effective communication throughout the development cycle is as important.

This means that upper management needs to proactively design and adapt ways of working and protocols.

Growing design/UX expectations will mean increased collaboration with marketers

Similarly to developers, marketers have become key drivers of competitive advantage in the digital age. They’re the ones in charge of digital experiences, which include providing customers with spotless apps.

As a result, marketers and developers — the ones bringing to life what marketers want digital experiences to be — now have to work hand in hand.

Developers are being called upon to create easy-to-navigate digital experiences, and the design portion of these can’t be an afterthought.

Providing developers with the right tools and guidance to improve and enhance these experiences, both from a technology stack and human collaboration perspective, will be key to success.

.NET 7 and JavaScript promising a healthier developer ecosystem

With the release of .NET 7 last November, Microsoft developers are seeing enhancements and improvements to productivity and performance across the board.

As the tooling and performance improves, .NET MAUI and Blazor Hybrid will continue to gain popularity and traction among desktop developers. .NET 7 also lowers the barriers to entry for new developers with C# 11 and API improvements, which makes it possible for a new generation of developers to start flocking to .NET.

On the other hand, as JavaScript matures, we’ve seen a slowdown in the creation of new front-end frameworks, greater satisfaction with the existing ones, consolidation of tooling and better performance across the board.

It’s as simple as that: developers have become strategic business assets, so organisations need to treat them as such. By empowering them with the right technology tools, processes and training, they can ensure the long-term success of the organisation and its clients.

Image credit: iStock.com/Galeanu Mihai