Ten simple rules for researchers who want to develop web apps

[...]the majority of researchers developing web apps receive little formal training or technical guidance on how to develop and evaluate the effectiveness of their web-based decision support tools. [...]we share the following 10 simple rules, which highlight take-home messages, including lessons learned and practical tips, of our experience as burgeoning web app developers. Examples of web apps range from interactive maps depicting disease transmission (e.g., [9]), marine health (e.g., [10,11]), natural hazards (e.g., [12,13]), and pest infestations (e.g., [14,15]) to bioinformatics resource collections (e.g., [16]), to omics data analysis platforms (e.g., [17]), and to citation visualization tools (e.g., [18]), among others. Briefly, ShellCast users can sign up to create an account and receive a text message and/or email notification (Fig 1F) at the start of each day that will alert them of imminent rainfall events over the next 1 to 3 days, the occurrence of which can result in restrictions to their shellfish harvesting operations.