Five Emerging Web Trends Post COVID-19
We’ve heard the proverb Necessity is the mother of invention all our lives. However, we never witnessed such a stark example of it staring at us. The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has changed the picture of the world completely. The wide-spreading disease has given the digital industry the strong push it needed to take several steps ahead.
COVID-19 had seemed like an inconsequential disease when it was initially spreading in China towards the end of 2019. On the contrary, in roughly six months, it has already infected about 7 million people in the world.
All the national and international authorities, including the WHO, strongly encourage social distancing and home quarantine. All these measures are to stop the spread of this virus and to protect the people against COVID-19. These measures urge countless businesses and industries to go digital.
The emerging web trends in today’s unfortunate times
There are quite a few trends that have emerged in these times and are getting popular with each passing day. Let’s talk about the emerging trends in web technology that will transform the scenario of the world economy and market. Below, you will find the five most significant web trends that will shape our world post-COVID-19:
1. Using Telemedicine for Healthcare
Healthcare will surpass its previous reputation in the post-COVID-19 world. The digitization of healthcare is not a new concept. Many software companies have been offering virtual medical appointments, patient’s history records, and e-prescriptions to patients even before the outbreak of COVID-19.
However, the physical interactions with doctors was still there and telemedicine was regarded with cynicism. Now that physical interaction poses a greater threat to one’s health, the Telemedicine industry is bound to grow tenfold.
Telehealth platforms are built in mere weeks to provide online assistance and digital meetings with doctors. Healthcare companies estimated that the crisis has increased more than 500% usage of their facilities, which will continue to grow post-COVID-19.
2. Video Conferencing To Avoid Physical Interaction
COVID-19 has deeply impacted all the travel businesses. The national, as well as international modes of transportation of all the countries remained inactive for a large portion of the last six months. This disruption created a huge loss for such businesses. It is a loss they’re trying to overcome by conducting business deals and seminars via video conferencing.
In the world post-COVID-19, businesses will be cautious about going back to depend on traveling. Video conferencing has other benefits as well. It is cheaper than traveling, more flexible, and easily accessible to all.
Many schools, colleges, and universities around the globe have also resorted to video conferencing for conducting classes. All institutions are encouraging online learning to prevent the spread of COVID-19 as much as possible.
The video conferencing platform would thus have achieved its long terms goals in no time post-COVID-19.
3. Conversion of Websites into Mobile Apps
Smartphones are the ultimate future of technology. Therefore, they should be the central target of all businesses that run or have a presence online.
Having more spare time at home during quarantine means spending more time on smartphones for most people. The extensive use of smartphones makes it necessary for businesses to have a mobile app.
If you place a responsive, smartphone-optimized website against any average mobile app to see which one is used more, the mobile will still win. Research shows that mobile apps have a conversion rate that is 157% higher than that of mobile web.
Converting websites into mobile apps is not particularly difficult these days. There are many tools and software available on the Internet that will convert your website into a mobile app in less than a day.
4. Increased Use of Digital Retailing
The COVID-19 crisis resulted in people choosing online alternatives of every chore they needed to go outside for. Grocery shopping is no exception. Online retail markets have been around for a long time. However, most people would rather go out to buy things.
Now that something as ordinary as shopping has become such a dangerous endeavor, more and more people are resorting to digital retail to avoid physical contact as much as possible.
A survey of the online retail businesses showed that 21% of their online customers are new to online retail shopping, while 41% of them were buying more goods than they used to.
The enormous increase in the sales of online retail markets started as a precaution during COVID-19. However, it is most likely to develop into a habit in the post-COVID-19 world.
5. Chatbots and Robots are Replacing Human Employees
The COVID-19 outbreak left no choice for the industries that ran on the workforce of humans to other than to shut down. The lack of business for such an extended time pushed such companies to look for safer alternatives.
Most of the call centers installed chatbots. Most of the companies admitted that the chatbots have now been running successfully for months. The government of many countries, and even the WHO has appointed chatbots to attend to public queries.
Although chatbots are currently tending to basic queries, the technology has a lot of room for growth and expansion. AI is on its way to replace in many jobs in the near future already. COVID-19 has only accelerated the process.
Goods-manufacturing companies and warehouses that are run by laborers are also evolving. Many such companies are now investing in robots to create a safe work environment, and produce uninterrupted at a larger scale.
These are some of the huge trends in web technology that will look very different from pre-COVID-19. There will most likely be many such trends whose rise we wouldn’t be expecting. It is somewhat similar to the unexpected outbreak of the disease we’re fighting against.
Social distancing, or limited physical interaction, has an impact on almost all walks of our lives. Therefore, it is imperative that we look for better, more accessible alternatives that help us sustain such a challenge should we ever face it again. The digital world of the Internet has a lot of scope for such alternatives.
The world post-COVID-19 is a world that we were going to see much later in the future. However, the battle against COVID-19 has made progress an immediate necessity.
