What the heck is Angular and Progressive Web App?!

... and what has the #AllianzGDF to do with it?!

What is it that today’s users want and need? What needs to be considered to get a good ranking from search engines? How can redundant work be avoided in the Allianz Group whilst ensuring that we bring a consistent and emotional experience to the customer?

It is about fast and frictionless user experiences, deviced independently, offering the right piece of content in just the right moment and situation. It’s about having the right IT and systems in place.

To make lives of our operating entities easier every day while matching user requirements, we collaborate closely with Google, e.g. in terms of systems and information architecture.


Let’s explain this by using two examples:

User View:

Problem:

53% of users immediately abandon sites that take longer than 3 seconds to load.

For users, time is money. They don't want to wait for a mobile website to load; they don't want to fill out numerous forms and fields to register or purchase. Transparency and global availability everywhere have created an impatient, spoiled kind of users.

A system is needed that ensures fast loading web pages, a user-friendly experience, useful features on every device, and content that fits user demands and search engine requirements. 

Solution:

Progressive Web App (PWA)

PWA unifies all these characteristics and can therefore be described as the symbiosis of a responsive website and an app:

- PWA can be reached within known browsers via an URL

- HTML can be implemented and visualized to fit different device requirements

- To access it like an app, an icon can be added to the home screen

- Offline use cases (theoretically) included e.g. from displaying information to checking out the purchase funnel

- Send out push notifications

- Target users by geo location 

Corporate View:

Problem:

Time-consuming creation and design of simple User Interface (UI) elements.

Imagine you want to make a simple button for your app. But how should your button look?
What should the type and size be? Should it have an icon in it? Is it responsive on desktop or mobile?

For just making one button, there are theoretically hundreds of different button combinations of states that you might need to consider. Not only that, but all of them need to run on every supported browser! And the button is just one of the simplest UI - elements, if it gets more complex, you need form fields, drop downs, modal dialogs or date pickers.

When several UI - elements don't work on several browsers, you might just end up spending most of you sprint fixing simple bugs! 

Solution:

Angular NDBX (New Digital Brand Experience) - the UI Component Library

The Angular NDBX is like a website builder for developers that hosts different UI elements like buttons, dropdowns or sliders that can be used simply.

- This saves hours and keeps the focus on the crucial content parts.

- Even more importantly: It speeds up the time for an asset to get to the market, which benefits the customers.

- Additionally, it fosters collaboration within Allianz as developed assets and solutions can be shared, reused and scaled to other regions. 

Are you curious to learn more about how we develop assets and solutions? Then get in touch with Jochen Supper.

 

Are you an Angular developer looking for new challenging opportunities? Check out our current job vacancies and become the newest team member at #AllianzGDF!
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