Strategies to Modernize Your Web App and Stay Competitive in the Market

By Anton Lohvynenko

Experienced CTOs know that it’s impossible to create software products that can completely stand the test of time. Applications need to be maintained with software updates and continually renewed to not only meet the demands of security and compatibility, but also relevance to the consumer. This not only helps businesses continue to maintain their edge in the market, but also helps them save money. Instead of pouring money into maintaining outdated and broken software, more can be invested toward the future.

These principles are what guide businesses to continue to advance their products and offer competitive value propositions to consumers. In what follows, we’ll review various strategies to modernize your web application with this in mind. Should you also be interested, web application development services are widely available on the internet. 

Software Modernization

There are two primary ways to modernize your software:

• Evolution: slow and steady wins the race. Businesses gradually improve the architecture of the project and make changes to meet the needs of the user. 
• Revolution: when necessary, completely rewrite the code of the project.

Each of these legacy app modernization approaches has its own advantages and disadvantages. Which one your business should choose will depend on the project and current state of your application.

Version Upgrade: Improving the Components of Your Product

Applications utilize libraries, languages, and other technologies. These individual components can become outdated over time. When these components aren’t updated, it can have serious consequences for the functionality and security of the project. A good example of this problem is that 80% of PHP users are using outdated versions of PHP like PHP 7.4. However, the only officially supported versions of PHP are 8.0 and above. Without timely PHP app modernization, issues may be found with compatibility, performance, and security. 

The benefits of putting in the effort to upgrade these components of your application greatly outweigh the negatives. Upgrading your application and its components will improve the security of your product by eliminating potential vulnerabilities. Updates can also provide more compatibility between components and critical libraries. The same goes for software integrations. Without being fully up to date, some integrations won’t work. 

Additionally, new features brought in by updates can greatly benefit your product. Not only that, but upgrading these components can make them easier for developers to work with. Version upgrades can also increase performance, allowing your product to be more optimized and efficient. 

UX Update: Updating the User Experience

User interface trends change over time. Not only is it necessary to keep up to date with visual design trends, but it’s also important to consider how you can make your product more comfortable for users to interact with. Here are some reasons why you may consider updating your user experience: 

• Usability: if your product is uncomfortable or difficult for consumers to use, it’s likely that changes can be made to improve their experience. Sometimes even subtle changes can be enough to make a huge difference. 
• Device Compatibility: making sure your software shows up correctly on all devices is another important opportunity to consider. It can also be helpful for businesses looking to expand their applications for use on newer form factors. For example, foldable devices and VR/AR headsets are requiring many developers to rethink how UX/UI should be developed to accommodate these platforms. 
• Business Goals and Consumer Needs: sometimes UI and UX changes are necessary due to changes in business goals or consumer interests. The interface you use should reflect what you want to achieve. It should also accommodate users and their needs.

Another important opportunity businesses can take advantage of is the right to web accessibility. Ensuring that software UX/UI is made with the objective of equity for users with diverse needs, preferences, and identities, especially for those who have been historically marginalized or underrepresented. This can not only improve the user experience for everyone,  it can also foster trust and loyalty among users. Because of this, UX updates can lead to greater customer satisfaction and sales. 

Integrations: Updating and Maintaining API Integrations

Integration with third-party technologies can be critical for the success of your application. However, over time, businesses must pay attention to how these integrations evolve and affect their products. For example, Reddit’s recent API pricing changes have forced third-party app developers to rethink their strategy in how they utilize Reddit’s integrations. 

Two important strategies to consider when modernizing legacy applications with API connections are: 

1. To make legacy services easier for businesses to use, organizations can either create RESTful APIs that wrap around them or provide API access to the web service operations that they contain. 
2. Organizations can create smaller and more modular services by redesigning the application code and offering its features through APIs. 

API integrations can make products incredibly efficient. Instead of using fragile and complex connections within codebases, integrations are a reusable technique that can connect multiple systems. APIs can also utilize data from legacy systems and deliver high-quality experiences for users. 

Due to these advantages, API integrations can allow systems to be modernized more quickly thanks to reusable code. This reusable code is the same no matter what part of the application it’s being used for, providing a great deal of flexibility.

Platform Migration: From One Environment to Another

It’s possible that your business may need to migrate your product from one platform to another. This may be the result of the old platform being discontinued or the new alternative simply being much more profitable for the business in the long run. Whether it be moving applications to a new data center or to a private cloud network, migration can be a headache if not done correctly. Applications are often built to function in certain environments. Modifying them for compatibility can be challenging, as it requires modifying the project to work in the new environment. 

When modifying an application for migration, developers aim to preserve the functionality of the app while adapting it to the new platform. There are methods to get around this. For example, some applications can be containerized with Docker, or they might be run using a virtual machine. However, the application may run more efficiently if it’s optimized to run on bare metal. It’s up to the business to assess the situation and decide which approach is best for them. 

It’s possible that you only need to migrate a portion of your application, such as the backend or the frontend. For example, lately, it has been common for .NET projects to migrate from JavaScript to Blazor for superior security and interactivity. Blazor full stack web development can be achieved only in C# and .NET without JavaScript. 

Re-Engineering: Redesigning and Improving Your Application

Software re-engineering is where developers analyze, modify, and redesign an existing product to improve its performance and quality over time. As a modernization technique, re-engineering allows developers to meet ever-changing needs of businesses and consumers by cleaning up the code. 

To achieve this, software re-engineering involves analysis of the existing software’s design, architecture, code, and documentation. By identifying deficiencies in the product, developers find their starting point toward correcting and improving the project. This might involve new techniques, technologies, and tools for re-engineering. 

What Modernization Strategy Should You Choose? 

Businesses should audit their products before choosing modernization methods. Some of the key areas that should be examined in a technical audit before making a decision are: 

• Architecture: identify issues such as tight coupling, scalability problems, and poor modularity.
• Code quality: readability, maintainability, and code standard adherence. 
• Technology stack: evaluate used technologies, such as languages, frameworks, and libraries to see what needs to be updated. 
• Integrations: check for compatibility issues.
• Security: identify weaknesses and deficiencies in authentication, authorization, data encryption, and other threats. 
• Performance: examine response time, scalability, and throughput. 
• Documentation: project documentation should be comprehensive, complete, and easy to read by developers, administrators, and end-users. 

By identifying the strengths and weaknesses of your web application, you can make the best decision on how to modernize it. 

Modernize Your Application

Now that you know how web application modernization works and how to audit your product, you can make an informed decision about how to proceed with changes and upgrades. 

When choosing a team to modernize your application, pay attention to the experience of previous projects, as well as the company’s policy on protecting software intellectual property rights. App modernization can be challenging, but with an experienced software development team, you can achieve your goals and secure your product’s future in a competitive market.

About the Author

Anton Lohvynenko is the PHP/DevOps Group Leader at MobiDev. Has vast experience of more than 10 years in backend development and solving complex tech and business issues. Anton is an author of tech articles on various blogs including DZone and Jioforme.