Tips for Designing a Successful Web App

The term "app," short for "application" like what is executed on a desktop computer, often refers to defined pieces of software that run on mobile devices and Mac-line computers. Programs on Microsoft computers are more often referred to using technical terms like "executable files." However, some entire websites are uploaded as "web apps" that essentially carry out program-like functionality on the server side that is displayed to clients remotely.

This is necessary for websites that need to be more sophisticated in their presentation and interactivity than what relying on web code consisting of the basic scripting languages HTML, CSS, and JavaScript can reasonably achieve. Such sites are often located at URLs ending in ".app" and can run as if they were stand-alone programs installed on the client side. Because of the recent increase in the number of mobile users browsing websites as opposed to desktop users, web apps often have to be designed to work on many different platforms.

A web app located at historicborders.app provides an interactive map of the Earth that would be very difficult to structure in web syntax otherwise. By clicking on separate points along a visual navigation bar resembling a timeline slider, different regions of the map are highlighted with colors and labels indicating which historical cultures and nations had once occupied those stretches of land. Dragging the mouse cursor and rolling the mouse wheel allows the user to zero in on specific parts of the map, which dynamically affords some crowded-out labels the room to begin displaying. When magnified closely enough, even town names can appear.

Recently, the app's author added support for displaying the map as a three-dimensional globe that can be rotated with dragging motions with the mouse, much like with Google Earth. Google Earth, incidentally, is available both as a downloadable executable file and as an experimental web app that can be executed within Google's domain and displayed within the browser itself. Because the executable version has to constantly reach across the user's connection to retrieve data from the server side, many users find the web version to perform more smoothly. For more information click here https://v.redd.it/qz8ojjo86qj61.