Your website is the face and persona of your online business. Good web design can increase the visibility, credibility and growth of your e-commerce site. A well-designed website also builds your brand as it attracts more web traffic. As your target audience accesses your site in increasing numbers, your sales conversion rates can improve significantly.
One of the most popular trends in website design is animation. Sites that include animation attract attention from regular site users and customers as well as from online browsers and casual visitors. Yet using an excess of animation can confuse or overwhelm your website users. The best site designs offer a pleasing balance between creative animation and interactive features and more standard, static elements of page design.
Major Pros and Cons of Including Animation in Website Design
The main pros and cons of using animation in website design include the following:
Pros
Calls Attention to Your Brand. Website animation calls attention to your brand and featured products. Your regular customers and site visitors will be attracted to your engaging animated presentations.
They will also gain confidence and trust in your brand, returning frequently to your site to stay updated on your new products and services. Even casual browsers will spend more time on the pages of your website, viewing your inventories and deciding to purchase products.
Gives a Website More Legitimacy. When a website displays engaging design elements like quality animations, web users tend to trust the site’s legitimacy. Since scam websites often have simple structures with basic design elements and mediocre content, your high-calibre site will stand out.
Savvy site visitors can recognize the time and attention that has gone into the creation and promotion of your website, its animated features and other appealing content.
Strengthens Customer Loyalty. Including quality site content such as attractive and informative videos and hover-over animations can strengthen your current customers’ loyalty to your business and website. They sense that your high-caliber visual presentations represent the high quality of your brand and featured products.
By using animated explanation videos and excellent rating plugins on your site, you will enable and encourage your customers and target audience to bond with your brand as loyal members of your client base.
Cons
Slows Down Site Loading Time and Functionality. Including animation elements on your website increases the overall size of your site. It can also slow down your website’s functionality since the site’s larger size can require more downloading time on many networks.
For your customers who live and work in locations with slow internet connections, the pages of your website may take significantly longer to load. Yet by using top-rated caching plugins, you can speed up your site’s functionality somewhat.
May Not Enhance User Experience. Although well-designed animations are attractive website design elements that engage and capture your target audience, they can sometimes interfere with user experience. Especially if you have an overload of animation features on your site, they may detract from the other elements of your page content.
Aside from increasing the loading time of your site pages, an excessive number of animations may be confusing and overbearing, lowering the quality of user experience for your customers and visitors.
