The Future of Web Design: The Power of Interactions on Your Website

Last Updated on April 15, 2024

The future of web design is here, where more and more users are appreciate websites that they can engage with in real-time. We’re now entering an era where user expectations have shifted towards more engaging, responsive, and interactive websites. In this article, we dive into what website interactions are, how they enhance user experience, and how you can start adding them to your WordPress website.

What are Website Interactions?

Website interactions refer to the various ways a user can engage with a website. Interactions could range from something as simple as text changing color on hover, to revealing content on click, or even providing easier navigation on a website.

Interactions are all about providing users with better engagement points to make for a better browsing experience. The idea is to bridge the gap between the website visitor and the virtual world, making it a more personal experience to keep your audience engaged. This, in turn, will help you achieve your different website goals, such as improving sales on an eCommerce website, generating more leads for your business, or increasing brand awareness for your company.

Implementing Interactions: Best Practices

Each interaction should serve a purpose. You shouldn’t add them just for the aesthetic. Adding interactions solely for the sake of it may defeat their purpose and worsen a user’s experience. Here are some tips to ensure your interactions enhance your website:

1. Create Purposeful Interactions

Focus on how the interaction can contribute to a user’s understanding or use of your website. For example, animations on an important section of a page can guide the user’s attention to it.

2. Ensure Intuitiveness

Create interactions that are self-explanatory. They should make a user’s experience easier, not more complicated. Like in the example below, there is an information icon at the bottom left of each slide indicating that it will display information. Imagine if the icon was anything other than the info icon, like a star or alert, it will leave the user guessing.

3. Maintain Consistency

Providing consistent interaction patterns on your website allows your audience to learn how your site works faster. For example, if a hovering effect on one button reveals a pop-up display, this should also apply to other buttons with the same effect to avoid confusion.

How to Create Website Interactions

Making an interactive website has become more accessible, especially on WordPress. Like on the WordPress Block Editor, any text or button that’s been hyperlinked will automatically have hover effects to indicate that it’s clickable.

Going further, Stackable – Page Builder Gutenberg Blocks has some features that will allow users to create simple interactions on their WordPress website. One of which is the powerful Hover Styles feature that allows you to tweak how a block responds to different hover states.

Motion Effects are also available on the Premium version of Stackable, where you can add entrance or scroll animations to a website!

Besides page builders incorporating interactions into their features, there are now third-party plugins dedicated to making creating interactions on a WordPress website easier. One of them is WP Interactions. At its core, it is a plugin that promises to make any website interactive with the WordPress editor. All you have to do is set a trigger and create actions (or a series of actions) that will play out once that trigger is set off.

Designed to work with the WordPress Block Editor, it’s crafted to work seamlessly with any element on your website—whether it’s part of your theme, a core block, or a third-party plugin.

WP Interactions will offer a vast spectrum of animation capabilities, such as hover effects, scrolling animations, motion effects, and much more! You can create your own unique custom animations and interactions tailored to your design needs.

Furthermore, its plans for dynamic content will push the boundaries even further by enabling actions to update post meta on the go, allow seamless page navigation, and dynamically load content!

WP Interactions offers a range of options, from motion effects that bring blocks to life to seamless page navigation without reloads. Whether you’re a seasoned developer or a newbie in web design, WP Interactions is the game-changing tool that you need to provide the ultimate user experience on your website.

WP Interactions is still in the works, but it’s officially available for testing! A beta version has been released where you can have a first look at how it can enable users of all types to effortlessly add interactivity to a website. You can head to their website now and learn more.

Conclusion

The shift toward interactive web design is not just a trend; it’s a crucial factor in the creation of engaging and effective websites. WP Interactions offers a simple yet powerful way to integrate interactive elements into any WordPress site. Explore its potential and contribute to shaping its future by testing out its beta release.