Succeeding online is no easy feat. From creating a stunning, responsive website, optimizing for search results, and creating great, shareable content for social media, it is a never-ending task. And once you have the traffic landing on your page, keeping your site visitors can be even more challenging. That’s why good web design is essential. Especially when it comes to blending design features with usability to provide a positive user experience. Well, here at Pumpkin Web Design Manchester, we are Manchester’s leading web design professionals. From Wigan to Southport, we work with companies across Manchester and the surrounding region to deliver high quality web design solutions that really get results. As a result, we have produced this guide to user friendly interactive web design.
What is interactive web design?
One of the key parts of providing a positive user experience is the interactivity. While your website doesn’t need to be a game full of animations and buttons, it should use some subtle interactive tools to keep the users engaged. These can include:
1.Micro-Interactions
Whenever a user has to swipe, scroll or click they are interacting with the website. This transforms the whole process from simply a passive viewing activity, to one where your users are engaging. To a point, the more they engage, the more likely they are to convert. However, too many interactions, or unnecessary micro interactions will quickly turn into a negative user experience. So you need to get the balance just right.
2.Animations
While random and distracting footer animations that were popular in the early 2000’s have thankfully long since passed, animations are still used on websites today. These often include:
- Hover animations- When a user hovers over a link/button, it will change colour indicating that it can be clicked. Or when a user’s cursor hovers over an image, it will change from greyscale to colour, or slightly zoom in. This can be really helpful when new users are learning how to navigate your site. However, bear in mind that hover animations rarely work on a mobile device. After all, it’s impossible to hover on a touch screen, where you’re either touching the link/button/image, or your not.
- Slideshows- Still fairly popular on website pages where users might like to see several images, instead of a video, slideshows can be a great interactive tool. And you can also use some subtle slide transitions to add to the user experience. The key word here though is subtle. Too much and you’ll overdo it.
- Load screen animations- If you want your users to download an info-graphic, leaflet, or supporting document why not throw in a load screen animation? It will help to pass the time while the download completes.
User experience and interactive web design
A good website will factor in both the user experience and interactive web design. Users do expect to see a variety of different interactivity types, from the micro-interactions to animations. The most important question for any item of interactive web-design should be “will this help the user?” Just as a slideshow can show off a range of products or images, without crowding up a screen, a simple hover animation can show the user what they need to click on to get to the next purchase stage. Both of these will lead to an improved user experience.
For more information about user experience and interactive web design, or for professional web design support, contact the experts today, here at Pumpkin Web Design Manchester.