Market research has shown that 95% of users assess the value of your website based on its visual appearance. Websites must be creative and innovative enough to keep users attracted to your website.

When someone visits your website, their first question would be “Why must I access this site when I have other real worth websites? What is so different about this site?” and that’s where your website must stand out from the crowd dominantly, clearly and convincingly answering user’s queries and making them stay on your website.

Parallax Scrolling is one such hot design technique used in most of today’s websites providing its users close interaction with the site and making browsing more interesting. Parallax effect was more popular in 2D video games in earlier days, but with the advancement in JavaScript, one can successfully use effects of Parallax in their website to give completely unique experience.

How Parallax Scrolling works

Parallax scrolling is achieved by having the background image (or elements) move slower than the foreground image giving an impression of 3D depth. Different elements move at a different speed, creating a sense of animation and enhanced interactive user experience. Content is marked up using HTML tags, while jQuery checks how far the user has scrolled and move different elements at a different speed.

The Parallax movement started in the web using two simple layers. Thanks to advancement in JavaScript, HTML5 and CSS3, now foreground and background elements can be grouped into different layers and speed of these elements can be controlled based on their layers.

Pros of Parallax Scrolling

Holding visitor interest

As a user scrolls down the page, he is taken to the next level of information without having the user to click anywhere to see the information. This feature keeps user attracted to your website, stirring their interest and wanting them to view more of the information.

Better product display

Instead of just displaying your product as a static image, Parallax scrolling can help the user explore your product in a totally new and different way. It gives 3D view presentation controlled by their own scrolling behaviour.

Bagigia is a classic website where user gets totally different experience of viewing products. 3D presentation of the product is shown with the user controlling the scrolling behaviour.

Visual narration (Storytelling) made more efficient

Storytelling is the best way to communicate a message to a human mind. A well-designed, one-page website can prove powerful storytelling equipment because scrolling through it will be like reading an interesting book that you cannot put down unless complete.

With the right amount of animation and scrolling, Parallax scrolling can effectively communicate your message about your product, their effects and the audience. Parallax provides a nice overview of your website by letting the user visualize the website through scrolling efforts.

Unique Design

Using the Parallax effect, you can design a website that is visually appealing and user-friendly and make your website more fun place and interactive thus, making it stand out from the crowd.

Cons of Parallax Scrolling

Parallax site takes longer to load

JavaScript/JQuery is used to calculate the position of every element in the page and every time there is a scroll, position of all elements needs to be re-calculated that could slow down page load.

Parallax Scrolling does not always work

Parallax effect does not always work well with mobile technology. You might need to make sure you have a separate mobile-optimized version of your website if your parallax scrolling website does not play well on mobile devices.

Too much scrolling

Too much scrolling may irritate the user that would tempt them to leave the site before viewing the main contents of your website.

Conclusion

Parallax scrolling is just sweeping the entire web community and is expanding across the web. Parallax scrolling websites are the future of tomorrow’s website design. It has become the biggest trend in the design world today and when done right and with the right amount of Parallax scrolling, it can no doubt, put your website ahead of the curve providing that extra edge over your competition.

–  Susan B John