The web is the most broadly reachable application platform available to you. A web app runs inside a browser, which means a single codebase can be opened on a laptop, a tablet, a phone, or a shared kiosk without anyone installing anything. That reach comes with trade-offs: you inherit the browser's capabilities and limits, you depend on a network connection, and you must design for screen sizes and input methods you cannot predict in advance.
In this module you are deciding which platform fits your project. To make that call for the web, you need a working picture of three things: how web applications are typically structured (a client in the browser talking to a server over HTTP APIs), the design conventions users already expect from web pages, and the constraints that shape what a browser-based interface can realistically do. Those three threads map directly onto the subtopics for this topic.
The videos below approach the web platform from three angles: the communication layer that connects a web front end to its back end, the difference between responsive and adaptive approaches to varying screens and capabilities, and practical visual conventions for web layout. As you watch, keep asking what each idea implies for your own project proposal: what would it cost you in effort, what would it give your users, and where would the browser get in your way.
A short crash-course explanation of REST APIs: what they are, how clients and servers exchange data over HTTP, and how requests and responses are typically structured, with examples. The video is part of ByteByteGo's system design series, so it frames REST in the context of how real applications are built.
Web applications almost always separate a browser front end from a server back end, and REST is the most common way those two talk; understanding this gives you concrete grounding for the Web Platform Overview subtopic and for the network-dependence constraint of web apps.
The Flutter team explains the distinction between responsive design (adjusting layout to the amount of available screen space) and adaptive design (adjusting behavior to what the platform itself can do). Expect definitions, the reasoning behind each, and examples of when you would apply one, the other, or both.
Responsive versus adaptive is the central vocabulary for discussing how a single web experience serves many devices, which speaks directly to cross-device reach and to Web Platform Constraints and Considerations; it comes from a platform team that deals with multi-device UI daily.
A fast, practical walkthrough of web design fundamentals from a working designer, covering common improvements to layout, spacing, typography and visual hierarchy that make pages feel polished. The framing is concrete tips you can apply immediately rather than abstract theory.
It gives you the conventional patterns users already expect from web pages, supporting the Web Design Conventions subtopic with practitioner-level, applicable guidance you can carry into your own prototype.
Together these videos build the platform-specific knowledge MO1 requires: the REST video clarifies the client-server, network-dependent nature of web applications; the adaptive-versus-responsive video shows how web interfaces must stretch across screen sizes and device capabilities; and the web design video grounds the conventions users expect in a browser. That understanding of web strengths and limits is what lets you argue in MO2 why the web is or is not the right choice for your project, and it supplies concrete constraints and considerations, such as connectivity, browser capability, and multi-device layout, that you can name explicitly in the scope document required by MO3.
These videos were chosen from YouTube on October 3, 2026. Each has captions; the player turns them on. Videos on YouTube can be changed or removed — if one no longer plays, tell your instructor. If a player does not appear, use its Watch on YouTube link.