Should your museums multimedia guide be a native app or a progressive web app (PWA)

When deciding how to develop your museums multimedia guide you will have to speak with many developers who will guarantee that their solution is the best highlighting their products benefits and trying to hide its limitations.

What you need are facts! Information that will help you make the best choice for your museum’s situation and challenges.

Progressive Web-Apps are trending, technological improvements are continuously reducing the gap between Native Apps and PWA’s. A common concern amongst museum professionals is whether their customers would prefer to access the multimedia guide without the need of downloading.

GVAM Interactive guides is here to help you make the right choice, therefore, we can provide our partners with both solutions, depending on their needs.

Below we compare the key advantages and disadvantages of both native apps and progressive web apps with the aim of helping you understand the real difference between these technologies.

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1) Offline functions

Despite both PWA and Native Apps are both accessible offline, native Apps are better in this sense as they are designed for specific platforms like iOS or Android, they can use the devices full resources and potential.

Additionally, PWA’s use browser cache for memory storage. It is a browser-imposed limitation that needs some engineering around if an intended app consumes many memory resources. This could lead to poor performance of BYOD multimedia guides, depending on the visitor’s devices.

2) Development costs

Native App development cost are higher since they require specific technical programming knowledge and developing the interface from scratch.

In contrast, progressive app codes are much cheaper since the same code may be re-used for different platforms. You only require one app that will work on a variety of devices, including mobile, tablet, desktop. PWA allows using the same design.

Additionally, PWA’s are very similar to standard web developments, therefore, competent developers will charge lower rates.

3)     UX and user interface

Since native Apps are developed in with regards to the hardware specific technical capacities, they create an enjoyable user experience because the interface runs smoothly with the smartphone that may not be paralleled.

On the other hand, PWA may underperform with some features such as mobile games, AR content, quizzes, inclusion components or messengers, where users demand instant response; and any minor bug or low page load speed may drastically reduce visitor satisfaction. 

The main problem is the page loading speed – developers are constrained by the browser’s speed and the quality of internet connection, whereas a native app directly uses device OS roots.

4)     Security

In this sense, PWA’s are secure, since they run over HTTPS which allows browser-to-server encryption. If the museum creates a secure environment for the PWA, the chances of personal data attacks are very low.

However, when handling visitors personal information, museums must make sure their service is secure and GDPR compliant. So, if what you want is to improve your visitor experience and customer satisfaction by understanding you customers better, or wish to enable visitor purchases from you media guide – we suggest you consider native mobile development.

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5)     Distribution

Mobile users spend most of their time in apps, not on the web. The native app wins the market as to distribution in the app stores. Depending on the number of factors: customer ratings, number of downloads, choice of the right category, the app becomes popular and accumulates a vast user base.

At the same time, less popular applications are lucky to break even. Having access to such a powerful distribution platform is a definite upside for native apps if you consider app search optimization tactics.

However, distribution through App stores has some disadvantages. There are harsh constraints that stores put on native mobile app development.

You must plan development through significant iterations and emphasize on quality control. Because if an update breaks something, there is no rollback to the previous version. Mistakes are inevitable and destined to happen, eventually.

PWAs are pretty fast to install and access with no app stores or any intermediaries involved. They show quite a high speed of performance due to the web nature (with all the dynamic content and caching).

One of the main PWA’s benefits is its fast user experience. It takes less than 5 seconds to open the app – a user doesn’t have to download and install the solution, it’s available within one-click distance.

Another vital difference between a native app and a PWA is that PWAs are SEO-friendly. Just like any other website, PWA is indexed by search engine’s bots – the website content can be easily found via organic search.

Statistics show that more than 60% of users use search engines from their mobile devices. These mobile “googles” will attract more traffic to your app since the page content will be considered relevant by Google’s ranking algorithms.

PWA’s have also obtained better results in customer retention than native Apps.

Nonetheless, the absence of PWAs on renowned mobile app marketplaces may turn into a disadvantage. You can miss an opportunity for promotion and target audience coverage. In terms of progressive web apps vs native apps, this is a felt con.

 6)     Maintenance

When mistakes appear, an application must be fixed and fixed quickly. Otherwise, the ratings of an application are going to suffer. That means that the development team must drop what they are doing and make hotfixes instead. It wastes development time and creates a hectic and stressful work cycle, consequently leading to high maintenance costs.

In contrast, progressive web apps are easier to maintain and support, since they are not bound by App stores limitations, a bad bug does not imply a disaster as with a native app. Will Progressive Web Apps replace native apps?

So, will PWA replace native apps?

Due to some inherent limitations, PWAs can have a hard time replacing native in some niches. Let’s consider some of these limitations.

•           Offline functionality is one of them. It is okay for small apps, but for those, who wish to develop accessibility features, personalized experiences and additional characteristics, cache limitations might come into play fast.

•           Another point is an issue with user experience connected to inherent network latency problems. That is paramount for mobile games and other features requiring immediate responsiveness such as accessibility guidance.

•           UI is one more limitation to consider. You can do more with it on native apps. Plain and simple, such as personalizing experiences based on visitor profiles or automated marketing campaigns.

•           To top it off, native applications are better at utilizing resources and features of an intended device. It applies to a camera or other sensors that a smartphone or tablet might have.

Without overcoming this, PWAs are likely to proliferate only in areas where these concerns are unimportant. Also, Google doesn’t seem to think that web apps vs native apps battle can be resolved with a clear winner any time soon.

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What is the future of progressive Web Apps?

PWAs can certainly augment web experience eroding the line between applications and websites. To where PWA is going to make the most headway, only time can tell.

One cannot underestimate how low cost and ease of implementation influence the spread of this technology. There is a possibility that PWA can become a perfect combination of a native app and a website. However, that is still in the far future.

How to choose the right application for your museum

Firstly, you have to consider the purpose of the multimedia guide and see what needs it’s supposed to fulfill. Usually, progressive web applications are used to develop small services where speed and usability matter more than rich functionality. If all features can be accommodated in the PWA, there is no need to invest in a more expensive native app.

However, there are situations when PWAs can’t offer the same level of seamless user experience and versatile features. Here are the main scenarios when it’s best to opt in favor of a native solution:

•           Responsive reliant apps like games, interactives, accessibility/inclusivity guidance, recommendations, cross-selling, automated marketing, are some examples.

•           High-security apps for e-commerce and e-purchasing. Any purchases made through the multimedia guide

•           Resource-hungry and device reliant apps like VR, AR, video chats, and so on. Direct communication with museum staff, augmented experiences.

Hybrid solutions excel at saving development cost and time while providing a similar feature set. The performance can suffer as web application limitation still applies to your app. However, you can utilize some features and resources of the device to be able to deploy your app in stores.

React Native is the most popular alternative as far as hybrid solutions go. It allows writing your app in JavaScript-like language and then connecting it to both iOS and Android. However, the code is not fully compatible with web applications and might require some adaptation.

The performance is better with react native vs progressive web apps. The downside is a lack of ready to use component libraries which can increase development time and consequently, costs.

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