14 comments

  • Jim SilvermanJim Silverman, almost 9 years ago (edited almost 9 years ago )

    i'm on a windows pc using a mouse with a scroll wheel. the demo is clunky and tedious. since you can't control a user's hardware/platform choices, parallax will never be smooth to all users.

    7 points
    • Ben Henschel, almost 9 years ago

      The scroll speed is too slow, it feels like when you try and walk in a swimming pool.

      Also, and I may be wrong, but isn't parallax layered backgrounds moving at different speeds to give a sense of depth? This just seems like animation tied to scrolling.

      7 points
      • Leon KennedyLeon Kennedy, almost 9 years ago

        You are right. According to Wikipedia:

        Parallax scrolling is a special scrolling technique in computer graphics, wherein background images move by the camera slower than foreground images, creating an illusion of depth in a 2D video game and adding to the immersion.

        This page is parallax where the iPhone scrolls into the page at a different speed than the full web page, but all the other fancy effects with the phone rotating, text zooming in and the boxing moving, zooming and fading are not parallax, but animation tied to scrolling.

        3 points
      • Andrew McCarthyAndrew McCarthy, almost 9 years ago

        Also a pet peeve of mine.. 'parallax' is used to describe all scrolling-based animation these days.

        1 point
  • Evan DinsmoreEvan Dinsmore, almost 9 years ago

    This is the worst kind of parallax... fuck scroll hijacking.

    3 points
    • Sebastian De DeyneSebastian De Deyne, almost 9 years ago

      I wouldn't call this scroll hijacking though, since it doesn't actually modify your scrollbar's behaviour. This is what I classify as scroll hijacking.

      3 points
      • Sam BeckhamSam Beckham, almost 9 years ago

        I disagree, this IS scroll hijacking. The iPhone version is as well—albeit a little less intrusive. Anything that modifies the scroll's default behaviour is scroll hijacking.

        3 points
      • Ben TinsleyBen Tinsley, almost 9 years ago

        Yeah, I'm gonna go with Sam and Evan here. You have to consciously think about how you are scrolling on this site which makes for a frustrating experience. I think designers/developers really like slowing down the scroll as a way to force people to enjoy the things they built. When you force someone to do something they wouldn't normally do with a vehicle they use all the time, like a scrollbar or airplane, that is considered hijacking.

        1 point
  • Jodi WarrenJodi Warren, almost 9 years ago (edited almost 9 years ago )

    Well, it depends what you're talking about. The performance is very good on my desktop machine, and it's definitely worth taking note of the principles he's advocating and using them when you can. Essentially, the front-end animation is done simply, and done well. You can see how effective RequestAnimationFrame is in something like Velocity.js.

    However, the actual user experience is still poor. In many ways it's worse than some of the original parallax sites. Using the scroll bar to essentially scrub through a loooong animation is frustrating and boring. I can't imagine how much more painful it would be if I wasn't using a trackpad.

    grinds my gears On a related note, and not the author's fault: It also grinds my gears to see parallax being used incorrectly. Elements scrolling at different speeds giving the illusion of many layers existing at many depths? That's parallax. To be fair, there's some parallax animation on this site but it's not the main focus.

    Edit: A point maybe lost in my grump: clients still frequently want this kind of site, and if you're not able to dissuade them, then please use the techniques that Dave's talking about, it'll make the pain that much easier to bear.

    1 point
    • Sam BeckhamSam Beckham, almost 9 years ago

      I couldn't agree more. There are far too many sites that turn the mouse wheel, or trackpad, or whatever you're using; into a glorified jog dial.

      How these sites were given the parallax name, I don't know. I think that's the part that annoys me most.

      0 points
      • Ian GoodeIan Goode, almost 9 years ago

        I think designers looking for 'parallax done right' would do well to look at early Disney movies like Snow White and Fantasia. Maybe it's because it's a relatively new thing, but 99% of the time on the web it's jarring and takes over the page. I'm of the opinion that you should barely notice it.

        There are a load of great points in that article from a developer's point of view.

        1 point
  • Eren Emre .Eren Emre ., almost 9 years ago

    I'm sorry, but no thank you. Hijacking scroll is not right.

    1 point
  • Arma GetronArma Getron, almost 9 years ago

    still choppy for me

    0 points