When updating a live site and the responsiveness score drops without explanation, the problem often stems from an indicator that was not being monitored just a few months earlier. Google replaced FID with INP on March 12, 2024, and this change has reshuffled the deck for any team working on web performance.
The web trends in 2024 are not just about aesthetic choices: they involve regulatory compliance, authentication, and how code is deployed on the server side.
INP and Core Web Vitals: what the replacement of FID changes in practice
FID only measured the delay of the first interaction. A button could take 300 ms to respond to the third click without the metric flinching. INP corrects this bias by evaluating the overall responsiveness of all interactions on the page.
In practice, we have seen sites with a good FID lose their “good” status overnight after the switch. Pages rich in third-party JavaScript (chat widgets, carousels, dynamic forms) are the first to be affected. For web development teams, the work involves a systematic audit of event listeners and reducing long tasks on the main thread.
We follow the news on standards and best practices in web development and SEO at https://journal-du-web.be/, a resource that covers this type of technical evolution.
INP also encourages a rethink of front-end frameworks. Architectures that hydrate the entire page on initial load create latency spikes on subsequent interactions. Breaking hydration into independent islands reduces the load on the main thread and improves the INP score without sacrificing interactivity.
Passwordless authentication and passkeys: a standard in acceleration
On an e-commerce project delivered at the end of 2023, the team had integrated a classic email/password form with SMS two-factor authentication. A few months later, users were requesting fingerprint login, without a password. This is no longer a technical curiosity: passkeys have become an accelerating standard in 2024, deployed by major platforms.
The principle is based on asymmetric cryptography. The private key remains on the user’s device, while the public key is stored on the server side. No password to steal, no SMS to intercept. For sites that manage sensitive data, passkeys eliminate the most exploited attack vector: credential stuffing.
Feedback on this point varies by audience: tech-savvy users adopt passkeys frictionlessly, while some profiles less comfortable with biometrics are still hesitant. The challenge for product teams is to offer passkeys as the default option while maintaining an accessible fallback.
Integration checklist for development
- Implement the WebAuthn API and test browser compatibility (Chrome, Safari, Firefox all support passkeys in 2024)
- Provide an account recovery mechanism if the main device is lost, without reverting to a simple email link
- Log authentication attempts to detect anomalies without storing biometric data on the server
European Accessibility Act: digital compliance as a production constraint
Web accessibility has long been treated as a bonus, a topic addressed at the end of a project if the budget allowed. The European Accessibility Act, which came into effect on June 28, 2025, changes the game for any company selling digital products or services in Europe. We move from a recommendation to a legal obligation with possible sanctions.
In practice, this means that web development teams must integrate accessibility from the design stage. Websites, mobile applications, and digital documents must meet specific criteria for keyboard navigation, contrast, and compatibility with screen readers.
Beyond dark mode: CSS system preferences
Accessible design in 2024 goes beyond simple dark mode. Front-end developers now use media queries like prefers-reduced-motion and prefers-contrast to automatically adapt the user experience.
prefers-reduced-motiondisables or reduces animations for users sensitive to motion, a setting that also avoids performance issues on older devicesprefers-contrastoffers enhanced contrast variants, useful for reading outdoors or for visual impairmentsprefers-color-schemeadapts the palette without forcing the user to search for a toggle button in the interface
These CSS features have existed for a while, but their systematic adoption in production is a clear trend in 2024. They are no longer found only on institutional sites: marketing platforms and e-commerce sites are integrating them into their design systems.
Edge computing and distributed deployment: code closer to users
When deploying a server application from a single data center in Europe, a user in Southeast Asia experiences several hundred milliseconds of network latency before the server even begins processing their request. Edge computing solves this problem by executing application logic on geographically distributed nodes, closest to the end user.
In 2024, this approach has shifted from a conference topic to a common production mode for sites with an international audience. The most frequent use cases involve server-side rendering of pages, content personalization based on geolocation, and managing redirects without back-and-forth to a central server.
The trade-off lies in operational complexity. Debugging a function that runs on dozens of different nodes requires a specific logging and monitoring strategy. Teams transitioning to edge must also rethink cache management and data synchronization between nodes.
The adoption of edge computing pushes SEO strategies to evolve. A site serving pre-rendered pages from a local node mechanically improves its loading time, which directly impacts Core Web Vitals and thus its ranking in search results.
The web trends of 2024 share a common point: they transform topics that were previously addressed at the end of a sprint (performance, accessibility, authentication security) into prerequisites for production. INP, passkeys, and the European Accessibility Act are not options to check off, but constraints that now structure the creation of websites and digital applications.