The Potential Downsides of Parallax Animation

Websites have become a necessity to the majority of businesses in the digital era because of the benefits they bring to both businesses and their clients. Not only do they help with increasing sales, but also in amplifying the performance and promotion of a business too.

Even tech-based businesses, such as a web design and development company, has to keep up with design trends to stay competitive in the continuously-growing industries. By “business,” it is not only limited to the computer and telecommunication industries, but also education, entertainment, and others that also need to keep at pace beyond the latest trends in website creation, such as parallax animation which boomed this 2021.

Parallax animation is an animation technique that works by making the foreground move faster than the background. It is also called a “2.5-Dimensional Effect” because of the 3-dimensional illusion it gives despite using 2D means only. Its main goal is to create an illusion of depth and give off a dynamic feel for its viewers. The technique was first and traditionally done in the famous animated films The Adventures of Prince Achmed and Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. This technique is also used by graphic designers, aside from animators.

In 2011 parallax animation also made its first appearance in websites, enabling web designers to utilize this effect through the latest versions of HTML and CSS. However, some problems keep popping up, which increases the complexity of using it, limiting its implementation only from advanced developers and resourceful agencies.

Not Everything Is Compatible or Ideal for Your Website

Sometimes, there are UI UX elements that are incompatible or not helpful at all to a website’s performance. Agencies such as outsourced IT support services with dedicated teams and more experience can see such problems ahead and prevent potential losses. The reason behind their existence is to help businesses out because it is never an easy task to maintain good overall website performance while balancing many other factors within the company.

In web design, parallax animation is usually implemented in page navigation for user interfaces (motion UI) such as scrolling, where contents are displayed at different speeds. It enables viewers to scroll through all pages with fluidity. But such beautiful effects also cause inconveniences that may result in negative user experience, such as a negative effect on Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and longer page load time compared to static or less flashy animation.

Search Engine Optimization

Applying SEO allows your site to appear on top of the search engine when a user enters a keyword in search engines or through your URLs enriched with keywords. SEO contributes a lot to the success of a website, making it one of the chief outsourced IT

support items offered by third-party developers. It is no surprise that websites alone are not enough, considering the number of competitors online. How is it related to parallax animation?

By using parallax animation, web pages usually become compressed into one long page, resulting in limited use of keywords and less effective indexing by search engines. Lower SEO scores would mean the website having lower chances of being found or seen by users, and so can negatively affect its overall performance.

Long Page Load Time

Integrating parallax animation into a page weighs it down with a large number of layers, content, and other elements that can slow down page loading. Any website development company with experience knows that page speed is a priority in creating websites.

Moreover, this waiting time can be annoying for anyone. According to a study, a delay of about 4 seconds in page load time can drive 3 people out of 4 away from your website. If such instances keep on happening, then your company might seriously lose a lot.

Know Your Market

Being skilful is not enough in developing websites. You must know what your target customers want and need. Will your audience be amused or annoyed by your desired UI UX elements? It is a must to know if a feature will be helpful to your business or not. Using parallax animation can either positively or negatively affect your website’s UX, and later, your company as well.

Should you wish to know more about parallax animation and effective web design and development, you can reach out to Frontline, a web development company in Singapore. We are experts in creating user-centred products and have also experienced working with big names! You can reach us through this link: https://www.frontline.com.sg/contact/.