All You Need to Know About Parallax Scrolling

The first time I saw parallax scrolling on a website, to be very honest I was awestruck and very impressed. I could keep my finger off the scroll. I mean how do they do it? Here you are scrolling down a web page like you would do on a normal day, but while doing the same monotonous scrolling, something magical and unexpected happened. The pages were not moving the way I am used to seeing them move. So, what is parallax scrolling? Let's take a look.

The parallax scrolling in web design is a design practice in which the foreground of the website moves at a different pace than the background creating the illusion of a 3D effect. The images in the foreground and background are arranged in multiple layers and they move independently. The parallax scrolling in the website was first created in the year 2011, and since it has been used widely all over the internet.

To see parallax scrolling in action check out this list of 30 Great Websites With Parallax Scrolling.

The parallax effect creates a unique and enjoyable experience to the user. The parallax scrolling in websites holds the visitor of the website a little while longer to the website. The effect definitely encourages the user to scroll further down makes the user curious to know what's more in store for them. This also increases the time the user spends on the websites.

Although the parallax effect does make a better user experience it is debatable if it improves the experience overall. When using a website with parallax, the entire attention of the user shifts to the effect, rather than the message the website is trying to convey. So parallax scrolling is not fitting for all kinds of websites especially those that provide rich written content to their user base. It can be used better to tell a visual story.

But still, this trend is seen in many websites including many corporate websites, landing pages, portfolios etc. But the extent to which the parallax scrolling is used varies.

Parallax effect has been used in websites for years now. But we don't seem to get enough of it. We still see many more creative designs that have the parallax scroll to tell their story. So what have been the trends of parallax scroll in the year 2017?

Parallax Scroll in 2017

The year 2017 has not seen any decrease in the popularity of parallax scrolling. There are still websites that are creating bigger and better sites with parallax scrolling.

At the beginning of the trend, the parallax effect was more of a scrolling effect in which the background of the website did not have many layers. But lately, in the year 2016 and 2017 websites have shown more clever and creative use of the effect to create a visual story-line.

The website for Alfred is a great example.

Another clever usage of parallax is the effect created by the movement of the mouse where the movement of the mouse creates the 3D effect of the layers of the background.

Alquimia is a website that creates the 3D parallax effect with the movement of the mouse.

rather than scrolling, the effect extends to mouse movements. scrolling down can be replaced from scrolling up.

A creative example with upward scrolling is Space Needle.

The use of parallax scroll has increased immensely in this year also. What has changed is in the context that they are used, changes they incorporate, and stories that they tell.

Parallax scrolling is not for every website. Parallax scrolling is usually seen on websites with long scrolling content. It is best suited for single page website with only one page or for landing pages of websites.

Parallax Effects Isn't Always Good

Although the parallax effect increases the user interactivity, it has some downsides. Some of them are major ones that can be a deciding factor whether the parallax effect should be used on the website or not or how much of it should be used.

#1. Loading the site takes too long

In parallax scroll, the websites usually have one page, have all the images, videos and text in one single file. So the websites sometimes take too long to load. This is not good for the user and the business.

If the website takes too long to load, the user may not have the patience to wait that long and you will end up losing visitors. And your website will end up in a downward spiral in terms of visibility of your website.

#2. Not very good with the SEO

As mentioned, websites with parallax effect have a lot more content and thus can take a little too much time to load. When your website takes too much time to load, Google does not like it very much.

Since parallax websites have limited or a single page, there is not much keyword optimization that you can do. Also on such websites, the written content will be minimum for essentially one H1 tag, and one URL. This really affects the visibility of the website.

When the website is only one page, there is only one way to get to that page. There are no other internal linking or any other pages from where you can reach the website.

Recommended reading: Web Design Trends That Will Rule in 2018

#3 Can create a bad user experience

Parallax scrolling website mostly has long scrolling content and the content of the website that a user is looking for might be lying at the end of the website. The user would not like to scroll down to the end of the page to get what they want. They can give a link to the landing page that can scroll down quickly to the target, but it kind of gives you a seasick feeling. which does not make up a good user experience.

Conclusion

Parallax scrolling is used by the designers mostly for improving the aesthetics of the website and give the user amazed. But it comes with a price. Sometimes the websites lading time and a certain aspect of usability are compromised. But if using the parallax scrolling is worth those compromises, then why not make a masterpiece out of it.