Single Page Applications (SPAs) have one distinct advantage over more traditional, multiple-page websites; speed. With User Experience (UX) touted as one of the most important considerations for a company or business website, it is not surprising that fast and fluid SPA websites have become increasingly popular in recent years.

While SPAs have been used by interactive platforms and social media websites including Facebook, Twitter and Gmail for several years, more recently, static company websites such as Moneypenny, Ebow and Otterdev have taken to the SPA bandwagon.

What is a Single Page Application?

A SPA website breaks the workflow or paradigm of the standard client-server model. Whereas a ‘standard’ website that uses HTML, CSS and a bit of JavaScript works by a browser, sending a request to a web host (server), which then sends back the HTML mentioned above, CSS and JavaScript to populate the website in the user’s browser.

Typically, with a SPA, the browser will send a request to the web host initially and receive a small JavaScript file that is downloaded within a few seconds. This file works in the background to populate the SPA website pages when the user navigates to a new page or “view,” as they are called with SPAs. Instead of continually sending requests to the web host, SPAs use JavaScript to populate pages almost instantly. Because of this, they even work offline.

In terms of its outward appearance and functionality, a SPA acts the same as a traditional website, only faster. Pages don’t have to reload, and requests are not sent to the web host when a user navigates.

User Experience & Page Speed

Before someone even sees your website, visitors will be judging you impatiently, based on the time it takes for a page to load. If your website is slow to load, then a user will typically head over to a competitor’s website in the hope of a better, faster experience.

Common problems with page speed are associated with using detailed or large images, videos and with WordPress websites – too many plugins. Page speed does not only impact the user experience the rate at which users leave your website; it’s also an important SEO metric. Google wants to serve its users with relevant websites, which are enjoyable to use. If your website takes 10 seconds to load, Google will see from its user metrics data that people bounce off it and straight back to the search results – meaning you’ll sound fall off the first page.

To summarise – page speed is important for a number of reasons. SPA websites are significantly faster than traditional websites, and this is one key reason that more and more businesses and developers are using them. However, the one caveat here is that the initial page that a user loads can be relatively slow to render. This slow initial page speed is important; if the original page is slow, the user could exit the website without experiencing the fluid transitions that a SPA provides.

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Originally Appeared Here