The Digital Conceptualist
Editorial
From the desk of Roman Krizek
April 20, 2017
Website design has evolved significantly in the last 10 years. Most notably, to accommodate mobile tech such as smart phones and tablets. Gone are the days when desktops were the sole peripheral to access the world wide web. Yes, there are a lot of great looking websites out there that utilize, animation, video clips, movement, etc... but, ever feel a little queasy looking at these sites? Dizzy? It's like some people who can't stand watching 3D movies at the local multiplex.
Prior to enrolling in SAIT's Web Dev program, I really only paid attention to more static sites like news or blogs. Upon doing my research to build this site, I visited some that had too much movement. One in particular was a site that employed paralax which can be found here. At first glance, it looks great. But after awhile, when your eyes are trying to focus on the text, they're also picking up all the background movement, and most likely your brain will have a tough time processing this. Another style which seems to be in vogue, is where there is looping video footage as part of the hero element, and right in the middle is a block of text. Again, your eyes are focused on the text, but your brain is also trying to process the movement surrounding it. I've seen two such sites in the last few weeks when putting this site together, and while viewing both of these, along with the paralax site, I started to feel very queasy.
During our web design course, we were taught about accessibility. This completely factors in with this topic. Make your site appealing and accessible to everybody, without making them feel nauseous. Some things to consider:
- Website load times - the more animations, videos, movements you got, the longer the load times.
- User experience (UX) - animations and videos do add to the user experience, but an even better design consideration is to allow the user to have control. Include control buttons.
- Time - ever gone to Google's mainpage, and they have a game in the Google Doodle? You start playing and then after some time you realize you lost crucial productivity time? There's only 24 hours in a day, and all our time is finite.
- Easy navigation - I've been to a few sites where they tried to employ the "Oh wow, that's cool!" factor, but they were hard to navigate.
- Eye movement - as an educated marketer, we learned that our eyes follow and scan ads and sites in a certain path. Make your eye scan path clear, so your brain has enough time to process the incoming data and doesn't get overloaded.
True, dynamic sites are awesome, but you don't have to go overboard with the "wow" factor. And static sites can be designed with suttle dynamic-ness within them. The thing to remember is: accessibility for all.