How to Integrate Parallax in Your Website?
Today it is almost impossible to imagine a website without animation or parallax effect. Every year it is more and more difficult to surprise users, and even free website builders have in their arsenal a set of standard templates with such effects. Hello, today is about such a popular trend inweb design as the parallax effect. In your own words, the parallax effect is an interactive effect of website design that allows the user to follow a specific story that the author wants to convey to him.
How do users see the parallax effect on the site?
As a rule, the parallax effect on the site is created through such techniques as:
- Uneven in speed movement of the background of the site (let's say it will be the texture of the sky) and objects on it (for example, a rocket). So, the sky will move slowly while scrolling, and the rocket, on the contrary, will move quickly, due to which a 3d effect will be achieved.
- The second technique is interactive loading of additional objects while scrolling across the page, for example, you will have a central object, and during scrolling, objects describing the properties of this product will disappear and appear next to it. The very first parallax website was developed for Nike.
What is the main purpose of the parallax effect?
Make a vivid impression on the user, thereby attracting a large audience and making people stay on the site. Tell the user a specific story, step by step, in the right sequence.
Do you really need a parallax effect?
My first impression when I saw the parallax site was confusion. "What the hell is going on and where is everything going ?!" You probably need to get used to it. Yes, the site still gave the impression “Wow”, but nevertheless that parallax effect in design should be used with care. As they say, a little bit of good.
It is one thing if you have an information site or a website for a presentation of a specific product, the main goal of which is to present the product in all its glory, thereby promoting it and increasing sales (this is usually characteristic of large and successfully developing companies), and another thing if you have a modest online store with an extensive catalog of goods. Wouldn't the static and understandable calmness of a multi-page site be more appropriate here? After all, a site with a parallax effect is usually a one-page site.
Animation on the site is usually appropriate if it is a portfolio site, or an event presentation site!
The parallax effect is very interesting and competently implemented on the RIO website, which tells about the concert of a Japanese violinist.
Parallax effect in web design
Before someone ordering a website parallax effect, you need to think carefully, do you have the resources for this - time, money, staff, and are you ready to clearly think over and present all the logic of your project? And this is very important. No programmer or designer knows your company better than you and he will not come up with what should follow in the history of your site. And this is where the majority of customers make a mistake. So, in my opinion, it is better to have a regular multi-page site that is understandable to the user than an incomprehensible parallax roll-up.
But if the site with the parallax effect is made conscientiously, the logic is clear, it is not overloaded with objects, the intuitive usability is preserved, then all the performers and the customer are worthy of respect!
Another option for the logical use of the parallax effect, in my opinion, is landing pages and their derivatives. For example, on a site where there is not much information, at least a small "decoration" in the form of parallax would be appropriate.
By the way, another sign of using the parallax effect on the site is the loading spinner before showing the site. This is done by competent specialists, as it happened in the example above. So that the user does not have to suffer from the slow work of the site, it is recommended to first load all the images involved in parallax scrolling into the cache. This takes some time, and in this case, a spinner is used, indicating that the process of loading images into memory is in progress.
How do designers create parallax effect on a website and should you be afraid of it?
Of course not worth it. Website design with parallax effect is created as for a regular website. Added only layers with additional objects that can appear as you scroll the page.
And the thing is that new programming technologies, not design, help to achieve such an effect. Namely HTML 5 and CSS 3 and much more. It was their appearance that predetermined the creation of the very parallax effect in the web industry.
An initial example of this template can be seen here. This is an English-language site where the author also talks about what the parallax effect is.
Today, the main task of the designer is to show the programmer and the customer how the animation of objects on the site with a parallax effect should look like. Programs like Adobe XD, Principle, Figma and others help to achieve this.
Even if there is not much information on your site yet and it looks rather modest, the parallax effect will brighten up the pages of such a resource and diversify it. With this 3D effect, you will be able to grab the attention of users. More often than not, parallax scrolling is a real highlight of the site, which people want to use the more often the better. It doesn't matter at all whether you decide to create a business card website or launch a multi-page resource, the parallax effect will brighten up any project and make it even brighter and more attractive.