What is parallax scrolling in web design?
Parallax web design refers to the use of visual effects combined with 2D scrolling to create the illusion of depth and layers in a user’s experience. This concept uses different background and foreground designs that move at different speeds to convey a seamless online story via the ever-present scroll bar. While there are varying approaches to implementing parallax scrolling, it is most often thought of as making the background move more slowly than the foreground to illustrate distance and depth throughout a page’s design.
Benefits
- Stimulate users with different levels of depth and a sense of animation (more often than not we’ve heard the adjective “fun” associated with it)
- Encourages longer page visit time as user curiosity leads to scrolling through the entire design (including the highlighted call to actions)
- Emphasizes professionalism and higher level of creativity of your company/organization (this can vary depending on the industry and size of the website involved)
Disadvantages
- Parallax web design does not lend itself to content heavy website. As a result, you can expect either negligible or a potentially negative organic SEO impact (i.e. a single page with only one H1 tag, heavy homepage content that isn’t broken up into a more logical structure)
- Users with motion sickness may become unsettling
- Users that are not as tech savvy may see your parallax web design as overly complicated and frustrating to find information
- The use of parallax scrolling can require extra steps to address responsive requirements
- Older browsers may have a difficulty rendering parallax design and scrolling (i.e. Internet Explorer 8) without heavily relying on libraries
- Could be a considered too niche to be widely adopted on very large websites
- Learn more about parallax web design and its perception for user experience