What is parallax web design?

“Parallax scrolling is a technique in computer graphics and web design, where background images move by the camera slower than foreground images, creating an illusion of depth in a 2D scene and adding to the immersion.” – Wikipedia

The technique grew out from the multi-plane camera methods used in traditional animation.  It was popularized in 2D computer gaming in games such as Moon Patrol and Jungle Hunt.  Two of my favorite games when I was on my teenage years.

The parallax technique has taken hold as one of the most used techniques for web design and it is widely used in content management suites like WordPress.  There are a good quantity of themes that make use of parallax and will make your site look awesome without too much effort on your part.

Here are some good things about parallax web design:

• Page and depth animation will amaze your viewers
• Guide your visitors through the site by using a story-telling approach
• Page visits will take longer since visitor will have to scroll through the entire page
• Visitors will be more curios about your website
• Call to action will be more effective if placed correctly

There are also some downsides to on using parallax web design.  Most of these are related to the fact that most majority of parallax websites consist only of one long page.  One page sites suffer from the following:

• Long page loads are common since all the site’s content is on one page
• Poor compatibility with mobile devices
• Internal linking through the site suffers since there is only one page
• SEO also gets affected since only one meta information, one h1 tag and only one URL are counted for search purposes

Most of theses problems can be minimized and fixed with common sense and good website management.  So not everything is lost.  Just don’t make the site too complicated (common sense) and don’t overuse images and effects (website management) so your message is easy to see and understand by your audience.  These apply not only to parallax web design but to normal web design as well.

Here are some examples from some of our customer and partners:

Sociedad Publicitaria

Centro Para Puerto Rico

Portal Para la Mujer

These are not DEMO sites!  Please do not post or fill out forms unless you really need info from these sites.

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Have questions about parallax web design or our web design services?

Contact us today!