Creating a web application: how to develop a web app without programming?

In the web 2.0 era, web apps are unavoidable. Even if you don't necessarily know what they are, you almost certainly use several every day. Google and Facebook are web applications, just like many marketing tools.

But many others exist, serving different goals. Web apps are, for example, an excellent way to build an internal tool for a company and make employees' work easier, or to set up a SaaS (software as a service). At Scroll, we specialize in no-code web app development to serve our clients' needs. But how do you actually create a web application?

What is a web application?

Before understanding the steps to create and build a web app, it's important to understand what it is.

Web application definition

The definition of a web application is very simple. A web app is an application you can use directly online, without having to install it on your computer or phone. Unlike a conventional application or software hosted on the user's device, the web app is hosted on the server side.

What's the difference between a web app, a mobile application and a classic website?

Web applications are often confused with websites or even mobile applications. But beware, they aren't the same thing. Several differences exist between these three.

A website is a set of pages, usually in HTML and CSS, hosted on a server. The goal is to present information to a user, who can browse the pages via hyperlinks. Every web page has its own address: the URL.

Example of a website: Wikipedia is a website that presents static articles to its users. To access it, you use your browser.

A mobile application is software you download on your phone. It takes up memory on your smartphone and uses its processing power to run. The user interacts with the app directly on their phone. This is also called a native application.

Example of a mobile application: Messenger is an app you download on your phone. To access it, you first need to download it.

The web application shares features of both the website and the classic software. Its goal is to offer interaction with the user while hosting the application on the server side. The user connects online to the web app to use it. A simple browser and an internet connection are enough to run it. Note: web apps are often part of a website.

Example of a web app: Google is a search engine. The user types their query in the dedicated bar to find results. The user interacts with the application from their browser to obtain a specific effect.

Here's a summary table of the main differences between a website, a web application and a mobile application.

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What are web apps used for?

Now that we've understood what a web app is, the question of their usefulness comes up. What are web applications used for? And why favor a web app over a native application or a website?

Web applications offer many advantages.

-        In terms of power, first. By hosting an application on a dedicated server or in the cloud, you no longer depend on your client's computing power. Native applications know this issue well: they need to be designed to run on most machines. Sacrifices are sometimes necessary so they require less power. This problem doesn't exist for web apps, for which a browser and an internet connection are enough. Web applications also often benefit from smoother navigation.

-        A web app can update continuously. Here again, for a native application, users must regularly run updates. Many don't, and therefore miss out on the latest features or suffer from security issues. On a web application, updates happen server-side: all users benefit from them without needing to install them.

-        Web applications only need to be developed once, while native apps must be built for both Android and iOS.

-        No installation is required for web applications: the user can access it immediately and share it easily with others via its URL. This is impossible on mobile apps, which need to be downloaded before use.

Web applications therefore offer many advantages, both on the usage side and on the development side.

Creating a web application: the steps

Several steps are needed to create a web application.

Find an application concept

What should your application do? Is it an internal tool used within your company, something you want to release for free, or something users will pay a subscription for? These questions are crucial: your entire web app development will depend on them.

To help you find your concept, answer this question: why do you want to create this web application? It should normally address a need. That idea will likely come from a personal or professional experience, or from a request by a colleague or client.

Take the example of Canva.com, a web app that helps you easily create visuals. The original idea came from a university design teacher who wanted to offer her students tools that were simpler to pick up than market software like Photoshop or InVision. The result: Canva is a very easy-to-use web application that lets you create visuals without design knowledge.

Choose the features

How will your app work? What will its features be?

The key is to think about core features, without necessarily going into detail. Core features are the ones essential to your application, those that will let you address your problem. The advantage of a web app, as we've seen, is that you can update it over time to improve it continuously. So it's fine if you haven't thought of every element that will make it up. However, you need an idea of the base features that will be available to users.

If you want to build a web application as a SaaS, for example, you'll need to plan for a customer account and subscription system. Several plans could be offered.

To help you design the features of your web app, ask yourself: how can my application help users solve their problem? The simplest way to answer will point to the features to develop for your application.

Take the Canva example again: how do you help non-designers create visuals without mastering classic design tools? Answer: by offering very simple and intuitive features anyone can pick up. The result: Canva lets you create shapes, change colors, load designs already made by other users in a few clicks.

Design your web app

Once you have a clear, precise vision of the app you want to create, you can move to the design phase. Careful: this isn't development in the strict sense. The design phase refers to creating mock-ups: drafts, to get a visual idea of what the app will look like and how users will use it. You need to create a visual identity for your application, work on the UI, UX (make the application easily usable and intuitive) and overall design.

How will users navigate within the app?

At Scroll, when we create mock-ups or need rough sketches for visual ideas, we like to use a web application perfect for that, Excalidraw. It lets you draw geometric shapes, add notes, color fills, and many other elements, while keeping the "draft on paper" feel we love.

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Build your web app

Once you've reached the final design of your web application and integrated all its features, you'll need to move to the integration phase. You'll actually create your web application to put it live.

This is often the most technical and complicated part, for which you'll need to call on a specialized developer. Fortunately, today many tools let you create applications transparently and quickly: these are the no-code tools.

No-code: the solution to create a web application without programming

Scroll is an agency specialized in no-code tools. These tools let you build sites or applications without strict development. They let you focus on the functional part and the design: they're usage-oriented while delivering performance on par with what programming tools offer.

Thanks to these no-code tools, we've already created performant web applications for many clients, to answer their challenges: setting up CRMs, automation tools, e-commerce solutions...

Our favorite tools to create a web app without coding

To create web applications without programming, we mostly use two no-code tools: Airtable and Bubble.

Airtable

Airtable is a tool that lets you create and manage databases, much like Excel. Airtable also offers a wide selection of pre-built spreadsheets as templates. Airtable is ideal if you want to create a CRM-type application or any other application that requires cross-referencing data.

An example of a web app built with Airtable? For one of our clients, we created a custom tool that lets them monitor the performance of each page of their website in real time.

If a page loses visibility, an alert is sent to the client, and a writer is brought in to write new, better-quality content. The principle is that of a classic database: on one side, the articles and their performance pulled via Analytics; on the other, the writers and their availability. The tool matches the articles that need a refresh to a writer who has free time. An excellent way to maintain your SEO performance in an automated way.

Bubble.io

Bubble is another celebrity in the no-code world. The tool lets you create very performant and powerful websites and applications if you master it. Thanks to its many features and integrations, Bubble lets you design and build web applications with very little or no code.

Bubble also lets its users share templates and plug-ins they've built themselves, to save you time. A complete solution to build your web applications.

A quick example of a web app we built with Bubble: https://investlists.bubbleapps.io/. Investlist is a web app that lists all alternative investment solutions (Crowdlending, Crowdfunding, Invoice Trading, Cryptocurrency, etc.). Our users can give their opinion on each listed platform via votes or full reviews, taking several criteria into account.

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Go further with web applications

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This article covers the basics. To dig deeper based on your needs:

- Looking for inspiration? See our 5 examples of web applications.

- Torn between a website and a web app? Read our article on the difference between a web app and a website.

- Evaluating the strategic choice? Read the advantages and disadvantages of a web application.

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Scroll, your partner agency to build a web application with you

Scroll is an agency specialized in no-code web application development. If you have a web application project, or if you're facing an issue and don't know how to tackle it, our project managers will guide you to offer tailor-made solutions to build with you. Don't hesitate to get in touch to learn more.

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