Tips for Designers who Adore Scrolling
The once despised and infamous trend in website design has marveled many with its epic comeback to the playground and is hogging all the love for design from which it was once stripped. Scrolling typically involves sliding text, images, or even video across a display in general. It doesn’t interrupt with the layout of the text or image content but instead moves the user’s view across a larger image that cannot be wholly seen.
If you’ve ever opened a website link and noticed the content or image on a page moving while another takes its place, then you have had a first-hand experience of what scrolling is.
The mechanism is usually user-controlled which means that it is accessed by manipulating a scrollbar using a mouse or specific keyboard shortcuts such as the arrow keys. Scrolling has redeemed itself from its past infamy and is, once more, a very crucial essential element for web design adored by many designers. It has also brought back with-it new rules or regulations for designers to learn, implement and experiment on. With the content levels of new sites rising, scrolling has made it possible for anyone to enjoy exploring such blogs or pages without the fear of monotony.
Another trend that is also gaining popularity among the masses of designers is mobile optimization. The website designers are now settling for displaying the content in their respective websites through scrolling rather than the previous and standard linked pages. Scrolling provides users with user-friendly interfaces making it easier and simpler to use as compared to clicking away.
Investigating the Resurrection of Scrolling
The rebirth/ resurrection can broadly be linked to one factor, mobile devices, and optimization. Not long ago, mobile users surpassed desktop users resulting in user-interface, UI, designers adjusting accordingly as well.
With the increase of users on smaller yet more efficient screens, the need for scrolling increased. After apps gave users the go-ahead to “surfing on the go,” web design grew into a vital element for mobile content and thus, scrolling helped build better solutions.
Extended scrolling on mobile phones is smoother and much preferred to building additional pages that would support the massive amounts of content on such small screens. It is also considered a faster method to access content through scrolling as compared to clicking between pages, an activity that would otherwise buffer in low internet speeds.
With social media sites compelling growth rates housing over billions of people, most of whom post content on these platforms daily, scrolling if intensely utilized to accommodate all of this online content.
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When combined with card-based design, a technique that heavily relies on visuals that elevate the design, the result gives users and an endless supply of bite-sized content perfect for the web on mobile devices.
What are the Benefits of Scrolling for your Design?
1. It simplifies designs
Website or page designing can be complicated across different devices, and especially if you have to build many pages that would accommodate the large mass of content. Using scrolling helps simplify the process and gets the work done faster.
2. Increases user experience
Scrolling reduces the number of clicks that a user has to make for their interactions with an app or web page and this gives them more user experience with the intended designs. Also, implementing long scrolling is quicker than clicking through a confusing navigational pathway, thereby giving users more time to explore your design.
Using specific types of scrolling such as parallax scrolling, enhances the taste and interest of the user due to the elegant and attractive technique in the design.
3. Enhancing gesture controls
Scrolling is mainly linked with touch gestures on mobile phones because it is much easier to swipe up or down a screen as compared to consistently tapping on different points of the screen.
Implementing Effective Long Scrolling
1. Reconfigure the scroll length to suit your content
In this age, applying short-scroll homepages is a trend growing in popularity each day with designers striving to increase functionality levels while sacrificing aesthetic ones. If the design does not correspond to your website, one can always shorten scrolling to maximize functionality.
2. Keep the navigation bar visibly in place even during scrolling
The past presented scrolling with the downside on hiding navigation bars and forcing users to scroll back to the main homepage to access it. Infinite scrolling helps maintain the navigational bars, making them clear enough for the user to easily switch categories no matter how far they may have scrolled.
3. Apply attractive design technique to give apparent hints of the availability of scrolling
This includes making use of pointers or arrows that indicate or show the user that they can scroll down the page to access more content. One can also use animated buttons or other standard but attractive interface tools that not only provide access to scrolling but also entices the user’s attention.
4. Give indicators on your design that show the remaining amount of content for users
Allowing users to gauge the content density and wholly control what they are viewing is a brilliant move of offering them a mental picture of what the website entails. Be sure to use indicators that inform users on the remaining content on a page to allow them to process the little they may have consumed before deciding to continue exploring.
5. Use progress indicators to show the loading time for your page
Websites may take time to load depending on the amount of content in them. It is, therefore, advisable to use progress indicators that familiarize the users to the content and loading time for the site.
6. Don’t misuse the technique by implementing hundreds of pages but rather the necessary content
7. Focus more on what the users want to see from your page and attach visual clues to help them find it
Drawbacks Associated with Scrolling
1. The technique may be too fluid for some users who don’t do well with it.
2. As much as many users may visit your page, scrolling does not assure you of the retention of these users on your page.
3. Large-sized videos may slow down the site speed, especially when using parallax scrolling.
4. The lack of connection between the technique and content available might be confusing for users.
Final thoughts
Scrolling is back and here to stay while offering endless opportunities for designers to turn their websites into a more attractive location for any user. With the right applications, it can give users access to more content, but the quality of the material remains equally a significant factor to focus on.
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