Responsive and Parallax: Two Web Design Trends to Look Out For in 2013

The web is a constantly changing environment. If you snooze, you’ll lose wake up behind competitors.

We’ve always had a tendency to let our clients know that if you expect your website to last 10 years, you have some flawed thinking. (See:  What do you mean “my website won’t last 10 years”?)

Part of the reason for a constantly changing environment is because technology is increasing at such a rapid pace. The piece of technology that we are singling out today is relating to the way websites are displayed.

With new technologies and coding styles becoming available, two new styles of design that are going to become more common in 2013 are responsive design and parallax design.
 

Responsive Web Design

Responsive web design is what it (kind of) sounds like – a design that is responsive to how you use it. A website with responsive web design displays differently depending on the device you’re using to access it. With a responsive design, unlike traditional design, the same exact website is loaded regardless of what device you’re on, but the website is displayed based on the width of your browser.

Example – if you’re on a computer, you’re going to see the full version of the website. If you’re on a mobile device such as an iPhone, you’re going to see a version that is scaled down to accommodate the much smaller width of the smaller mobile browser. As the case with all responsive design websites, the width of the browser you’re accessing the website from will determine how you view the website.

The big pro with responsive web design is that it's geared towards automatically accommodating each visitor to ensure they have the best experience possible. Many companies fail to have a mobile version of their website created or fail to have a mobile app for mobile visitors. Responsive design is a perfect solution for a company that wants to have one website, that loads perfectly for visitors on all devices.

The largest responsive website design project to date (as of this article) is newspaper giant The Boston Globe. You can check that website out by going to BostonGlobe.com.

Also up there with the leaders in responsive web design s is the Obama campaign, which continues to be on the lookout for the latest technologies. Check out the Obama campaign’s usage of responsive web design by going to Barack Obama’s official website: BarackObama.com. Online tech news website Mashable.com also recently adjusted to a responsive website.

 

Parallax Web Design

Parallax web design is a form of websites that are one page websites using a parallax scrolling technique to give a user an entire multi-page website on one page, by simply scrolling their mouse.

Parallax websites allow you to scroll to either view an entirely horizontal or vertical website without ever leaving the page. Here’s an example of both (make sure to view from a desktop computer or laptop)

Horizontal Parallax Web Design: http://www.nintendo.com.au/gamesites/mariokartwii/#highlights
Veridical Parallax Web Design: http://www.smokeybones.com/ and http://community.saucony.com/kinvara3/

Parallax website design is a great way to entertain visitors that want to be entertained. Let’s face it, in society today, people have gotten lazy, and offering a website that provides entertainment by moving and displaying your content in a more entertaining way, can have many benefits.

Among the benefits of parallax website design is an enhanced user experience that provides interaction. Many studies in the marketing and advertising industries have proven that shoppers and visitors that can engage and interact with a brand are more likely to follow through with some form of request for purchase - whether services or products.

While there are a ton of pro's to parallax website design, there are some con's too. Any web agency that is going to build out a website featuring parallax scrolling is definitely going to take more time than building a standard website. Much more of the website has to be designed when doing parallax web design than a standard website, which would generally be made up of a homepage design and interior design.

Parallax websites require more time and cost more money, as agencies typically have to do a lot more design work and spend more time programming each section of the website.

 

So, now that you know about both types of web designs that are going to become more common in 2013, I’m sure you’re asking what I was asking when I found out about them… can you mix them? Sure! Check out this example of when parallax web design meets responsive web design: http://www.greygoose.com

Parallax website designs and responsive website designs aren’t for every brand and company. E-Commerce websites for example, are better off with specific browser versions and mobile versions of their websites. Ecommerce websites are also going to have many pages and cannot be contained to a one page scrolling setup - unless it's a single product. Should you be considering one or the other though, we’d love to discuss it with you, so give us a call.

Basch Solutions, LLC is a website design and development company based in Rochester, NY. Having offered website design services and website development services, among a plethora of other web services, for many years, Basch Solutions, LLC has a number of raving fans in industries ranging from real estate to insurance to online retail to you name it.

Update: After publishing this article, I stumbled upon this article: Why 2013 Is the Year of Responsive Web Design from Mashable.com, who just recently revamped their website which accommodates responsive website design. Check it out for even more on Responsive Web Design.

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