Responsive and Parallax: Web Design, 2013 Style

Published January 7th, 2013 by Farin Innovations

Just when you start to feel comfortable with the way the web works…the entire scene changes.

And you’ve got to change with it – or you’ll end up losing clients to the competition.

This year is no different.

2013 brings New Year’s resolutions and new trends in site design. As coding technology improves, we’re going to see a significant uptick in two new web design types: responsive and parallax.

Pay attention. This is going to be big.

What is Responsive Web Design?

We have smartphones. We have smart cars. A responsive website is a smart website.

Responsive web design automatically adjusts to your viewing device, conforming to the screen size and width of your mobile device or computer. A responsive site “responds” to your technology, offering a premium viewing experience no matter where you are.

Smart, huh?

In the past, companies had to create mobile apps or re-design their sites to fit on mobile devices. That’s so 2012.

This year, more and more businesses will follow the lead of BostonGlobe.com, Mashable.com and BarackObama.com and implement “one size fits all” responsive site design -- allowing visitors to navigate sites from any device without the extra hassle of separate mobile sites or apps.

As you can imagine, a more seamless site experience ultimately leads to higher traffic and conversion rates. Responsive site design can increase your ROI – so stay tuned.

Don’t forget – you heard it here first.

What is Parallax Web Design?

Let’s face it – humans are lazy.

Potential clients have short attention spans, and they may not want to click on lots of buttons to see your site’s internal pages. Clicking buttons takes so much time and so much work.

Wouldn’t it be easier if everything were all on one page?

Parallax web design is site design for the lazy viewer. On this type of site, a parallax scrolling technique allows site visitors to view an entire multi-page site in a single-page horizontal or vertical format.

Picture a website you read like a comic strip. That’s right – first your Home” frame, followed smoothly by your “About” frame, your “Services” frame and your “Contact” frame. Bang! Wham! Kapow!

Instant gratification.

Check out these examples of parallax design:

Horizontal http://www.nintendo.com.au/gamesites/mariokartwii/#highlights
Vertical  http://www.smokeybones.com/, http://community.saucony.com/en/home.

As you can see, parallax is a radically different user experience – a much more interactive and entertaining one. See some potential $$? We do, too.

Parallax sites are more design-intensive than traditional websites, and right now they often cost more. As technology gets smoother, parallax will move to the mainstream – so be ready for it when it hits the big-time.

Moving Forward

Is parallax or responsive web design the right choice for your site? It’s a question you should ask sooner rather than later. For e-commerce sites, a traditional site design might be best – a separate mobile design usually works better than responsive, and long lists of products don’t work well with parallax. But standard company websites may benefit from a responsive or parallax design makeover this year.

Of course, if you want to get really funky, you could combine the two types of design like these people did: http://www.greygoose.com

That’s what we call being really ahead of the curve.

Farin Innovations is an acclaimed Miami web design and development firm, staffed with a team of passionate web gurus. We’d love to hear your questions about responsive and/or parallax web design, and discuss how we can boost results for your site.

 

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