Over the past few weeks I've noticed a few more websites appearing online using parallax methods in their designs with some very impressive results.

"Parallax is a displacement or difference in the apparent position of an object viewed along two different lines of sight, and is measured by the angle or semi-angle of inclination between those two lines". - Wikipedia

In terms of the parallax scrolling or parallax design, this is the technique of moving or changing background elements on a website at a different speed to that of the foreground elements. This results in different website elements changing as a user scrolls or navigates through a website. It creates the illusion of perspective movement as the user moves with the website.

Examples of Parallax Scrolling in Web Design

This is a list of six websites that use parallax scrolling in no particular order. There is a huge amount of these websites out there, but in my research these are my favourites.

Biamar

Netlash BSeen

New Zealand

TokioLab

Whiteboard

Ala

Benefits of Parallax Scrolling

• Visually appealing and engaging to the users
• Highly creative way of displaying content
• Dynamic and responsive

Downsides to Parallax Scrolling

• Complex implementation
• Usually very large downloads and website file size
• Slow loading
• Issues with backwards compatibility
• Expensive implementations

I've managed to find a few Joomla sites using some parallax techniques but nothing really as complex as some of these website examples. Will we see parallax scrolling in Joomla templates from template shops? We'll just have to wait and see.

If you have any other examples or know of some Joomla websites that make good use of parallax scrolling, please comment and share with the rest of the Joomla community.