Parallax design involves creating a scrolling effect on images and backgrounds , In a parallax scrolling page, background images move by the view port slower than foreground images, creating an illusion of depth in a 2D video game and adding to the immersion. This technique is now being rapidly used in website development making the viewing experience that much richer and enhanced.
Essentially a website that uses a based parallax design allows a view to scroll down with the page in a manner that it creates interesting visual effects that enhances the overall user experience. It makes the website much more fun to go through and as a result, you will find that your site and brand become more memorable as a result.
Parallax Design Example - Scroll up and down
Another feature in parallax scrolling allows you to offer a better scrolling experience when you have a lot of content and only some specific areas of that content a reader may want to go through. Parallax scrolling allows a viewer to go through a list of contents at the top of a page and jump immediately to the specific area they are interested in reading. Chances are you have already experiences many such sites that function in this manner such as Wikipedia.
While gaming platforms have been using parallax scrolling for many years now, the web based scrolling system was only introduced in 2011, using HTLM5 and CSS3. Basically when you interacting with a parallax design, you are getting a modern and captivating experience that is easily eye-catching and as a result will make your user experience that much better.
If you want to increase engagement with your website, this would be an ideal way to go about it. There are however, some concerns about using parallax scrolling that you should keep in mind before making your decision. For one, it is highly animated making the loading time that much slower – this could result in traffic bouncing which the opposite of what you set out to do in the first place – so unless you are aware of type of internet connection your viewers have, you need to think hard about if you should use it or not – or minimize the animations as much as possible. Another thing to keep in mind is that not all browsers support the parallax based platform as it is still fairly new.
The biggest thing to take note of is the fact that parallax designs don’t take SEO into consideration – something that is quintessential to effective digital marketing. Because the visual dynamics of a parallax based design takes precedence over most other elements and the fact that SEO is affected means you may need to find other ways to get people to visit your site. After they get there, the experience itself will take the consumer journey forward.
Get online, experience other parallax based web platforms and do your research before you decide if it works for you.