Challenges and Preferences of Developers and Designers
How Developers and Designers Are Accelerating App Development with Low Code Platforms
Low-code platforms accelerate product development cycles by enabling development teams to use WYSIWYG tools with drag & drop interfaces to rapidly build and deploy applications. This delivers faster results than traditional coding methods, with estimates of 75% reduction in development time and 65% reduction in development costs.
Both Gartner and Forrester have estimates that by 2024, roughly 65% of app development will be done on low code platforms. The global low-code application market revenue is estimated to be just below $50B USD by 2025 with a projected growth up to $85B USD at a compounded annual growth rate (CAGR) of around 30% in the forecasted period. Every vertical market is impacted by low-code tools, from banking & financial services leading the way, with healthcare, insurance, energy, manufacturing, telecom, government investing heavily in low-code tools.
App Builder™ from Infragistics is a cloud-based, low-code WYSIWYG drag & drop tool that eliminates the complexity of building rich experiences in modern web applications. With App Builder, you can start your app from scratch or choose from a library of pre-built templates or responsive screen layouts, you can use built-in themes or add your own, perform data binding to cloud-based or on-prem data, and generate production ready code to continue your app dev cycle. App Builder comes with a complete UI library with a WYSIWYG designer that lets you build apps in minutes not days, weeks or even months.
Over the last 6 months, we have been hosting a bi-weekly webinar series where we demonstrate features, capabilities and customer benefits inside App Builder. At the conclusion of each session, we ask our audience of developers, designers, and product managers questions to gauge their thoughts on the direction of software development in 2023 and beyond, and how App Builder fits in to their app development needs.
This survey reports what we’ve learned in the first half of 2023.
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Developers Lead the Way at our Events
Which Role Best Describes You?
About 74% of our audience is developers, which makes sense, as developer tools is the historical audience for Infragistics products. However, with 13% of respondents in the Product Management role, and almost 7% in a Design role, it demonstrates the broader audience for low-code platforms like App Builder.
Low-code tooling is not just for developers, though developers will gain the most immediate benefit from adopting tools like App Builder.
The Majority of Developers are Using Web Platforms
Which Platform Do You Currently Code In?
The most common developer platform used is Angular at 27%, while the desktop platforms like WPF & Windows Forms account for 25% of app dev, the bigger trend is Blazor. Being a relatively new framework, it captured a 12% adoption rate, and should be watched closely for growth as we expect the traditional .NET / C# development teams that are still on Windows Forms & WPF to eventually look at Blazor as their on-ramp to the modern web.
Most Developers Use Visual Studio & Visual Studio Code
Which IDE Do You Use?
As expected, Visual Studio and VS Code reign supreme as the go-to IDE for desktop & web developers with 98% of respondents using one or both. The interesting data point is that while 25% of our respondents are building Windows Forms & WPF apps, up to 84% are using Visual Studio as their primary IDE. This tells us that even the pure web developer is using Visual Studio, possibly with ASP.NET Core backends or Web API’s.
The Majority of Developers Also Act as UI Designers
Do You Work with a Design Team?
Seventy-two percent (72%) of respondents are not working with designers. This is consistent with what we see anecdotally in the market – even in the large enterprise where you’d expect a free flow of designers, we see large and small teams alike with no design help. Low-code tools like App Builder can dramatically help teams that don’t have designers, and unique to App Builder, the design-system based approach we take makes it even easier for designers to participate in the process when they need to.
Without the help of a design team, developers rely on pre-built screen layouts, app templates, and sample apps in App Builder to kickstart their next app.
Over 50% of Product Managers Don’t Use Design Tools
Which Design Tool Do You Use?
Supporting the previous data that says most developers don’t work with designers, we asked about design tooling that both developers and designers use. While most developers use either nothing, Sketch, Paint or PowerPoint, we see a stronger pull towards Sketch for Product Managers. Figma stands out with a higher adoption rate amongst most other tools. Over the next 6 to 12 months, we expect Figma to continue to rise in adoption as a go-to tool for both developers and designers.
More Developers are Moving to Building Web API’s
Are You Building Web API’s?
More than 2 out of 3 developers are building Web API’s, which is consistent with the shift of going from desktop to web. We’ll continue to see growth in Web API’s, with frameworks like .NET 6 and beyond making it easier and easier for developers to move to an API-based application approach.
Most Apps Use SQL Server & REST API’s
What Data Sources Do You Use?
We framed this question as “What Data Sources Do You Use”. As expected, SQL Server is the most popular data source for app developers. RESTful APIs are a close second place, consistent with the shift to Web API’s and modern web development. The takeaway here is that developers have moved to cloud-based data access – they are no longer only thinking on-prem, client-server type architectures.
Working with HTML/CSS is a Developer’s Biggest Challenge
What Slows You Down the Most When Building Web Apps?
Forty-four percent (44%) of developers say that working with HTML/CSS is the biggest challenge they face when building web apps, with just over 1 in 4 saying screen design & layout is the biggest challenge. A good low-code tool will all but eliminate complex UI design & layout, which is where we see the bulk of time savings and ROI in platforms like App Builder.
Developers Spend One-Third of Their Time on the Tasks That Slow Them Down the Most
How Much Time Do You Spend on These Tasks?
Developers spend more than one-third (39%) working with HTML/CSS, which 44% of developers note is the task that slows them down the most. Without the help of a design team, developers can spend upwards of 30% of their time on Screen Design & Layout.
Teams Are Using App Builder to Help Them in a Variety of Ways
Where Does App Builder Help the Most?
Respondents felt that App Builder could be utilized in a variety of ways, with 28% saying Learning Web Tech would be the most common instance. Despite that slight edge, most felt there were a variety of uses for App Builder, providing a true design-development collaboration tool. A unique differentiator vs. other low-code tools on the market is that App Builder generates pixel-perfect, production-ready code for any app that is designed/built with the tool or in Figma & Sketch. This means that while it is the perfect tool to deliver the next big project, it can also help developers learn, as they can review/generate real code for anything in App Builder.
Developers Learn from Videos
What is Your Favorite Resource to Get Help?
With YouTube clocking in at 1 billion minutes viewed per day, with the average being 8 ½ minutes per human on the planet, it’s no wonder developers are a big part of that number. Fifty-seven percent (57%) of respondents tell us that videos are their favorite way to learn technology.
Try App Builder Today
As the developer community continues to innovate and grow, tools like App Builder are no longer a luxury but have become a necessity in order to keep up. Start delivering projects early and on-budget with a beautiful, differentiating user experience in the only RAD tool on the market that gives you production-ready Angular, Blazor & Web Components code. With a full toolbox of UI controls, including a full suite of high-performance data grids and data charts, transform your legacy apps to modern, responsive web experiences 10x faster than hand coding.
Methodology
This data was collected through a webinar series with poll questions from January 2022-June 2023
Results are from surveying 388 Developers, Designers and Product Managers
About the Author
Zdravko Kolev
As Product Development Manager, Zdravko and his team are working towards Web Products prosperity, actively engaged with the most complex parts of the Indigo.Design App Builder and Ignite UI for Angular product. He is working with the entire product team to articulate a broader product strategy and vision ensuring that customers around the world are provided with the best guidance and support to grow their business.
