We’ve discussed the value of building a brand story that engages your target audience with an emotional tug on their heartstrings. However, have you heard about a new website design technique changing how the flow of content is presented on your platform?
Modern websites need to leverage stunning visuals and engaging narratives to elevate the overall user experience. This need is driven by the trend of scrollytelling as a web design technique.
What is Scrollytelling?
Put simply, scrollytelling design blends the scrolling action users do on social media with storytelling to relay your brand and content. It makes the story more engaging as users scroll through your web pages.
Instead of a simple who, what, how, why, and where – your website dynamically presents text, audio, images, and videos the more users use mouse wheels or fingers to scroll. Information is presented in a way to trigger interaction so users are not passively reading or browsing your website.
How is Scrollytelling Different from Storytelling?
It is important to tell the difference between scrollytelling and storytelling. Straightforward storytelling tells your brand message through words, visuals, or sounds that cultivate an emotional connection with your audience.
Scrollytelling takes that same idea, but elevates it into a medium where scrolling through the information reveals progressively more engaging content and interactive elements. Content on the website “comes alive” as users scroll.
When Can Scrollytelling Be Effective?
Scrollytelling comes into play whenever you want your website design to highlight a story with a lot of details. For example, if you have a product story moving from initial idea to formal market promotion, you can leverage scrollytelling to present that journey in a fun and engaging way.
Everything from new products to promotional campaigns to case studies about your design firm is easier to present when you leverage scrollytelling. So, how would a nonprofit or government organisation take advantage of scrollytelling?
Think of the information you wish to present as an experiential story. You can use leading web design techniques that fully respond to the user’s scrolling, regardless of device size.
Examples of Non-Profit Scrollytelling
Let’s say you’re running a nonprofit off the coast focused on rebuilding coral reefs. You have a lot of interest, but you want to stand out in your niche to gain as much engagement with donors and volunteers as possible. You would use scrollytelling by:
- Crafting Visual Impact: Using stunning imagery of coral reefs, highlighting the incredible colours and signs of stress due to climate change.
- Scroll-Based Narrative: The more your visitors scroll through your content, the story of how coral has changed from one of the most useful parts of our global ecosystem to a threatened element becomes more immersive and engaging.
- Interactive Elements: Throughout the visuals, you use animations, transitions, and layered elements to keep readers engaged so they will reach the “final ask” at the end.
- Call to Action: All the elements on your website drive the users toward the last CTA. Similar to a sales funnel where visitors are encouraged to take action by donating, spreading awareness, or volunteering at local events.
When done right, and there will be some trial and error to see what resonates with your target audience, you gain a much stronger online foothold in your industry.
The same techniques could be used for a wealth of other Not-for-Profits, like medical providers helping those with vision issues, teams helping rehouse immigrants, or even a small food truck offering much-needed nourishment to a few hundred people every weekend.
If you have a story to tell, you can leverage scrollytelling.
Suggested Scrollytelling Techniques for Your NFP Website
The beauty of using scrollytelling in web design is you have a lot of wiggle room to try new things. Give your web designers and graphic artists space to experiment a little while maintaining the online integrity of your NFP brand. Here are a few ideas:
- Parallax Scrolling – making background elements move at a different speed than those in the foreground.
- Trigger Animations – visual animations that are triggered as users scroll.
- Sticky Navigation – headers or visuals that remain in the same fixed position while you scroll through the page.
- Engaging Multimedia – using different visual and audio elements to tell your story.
- Progress Indicators – clear scroll bars that mark how far users have progressed through the story.
- Interactive Elements – hover effects, sliders, or buttons that help users interact with your website.
- Transitions – fading or pop transitions between different visual “slides” of your story.
- Data/Sequential Storytelling – using step-by-step visuals or animated charts to unfold the story.
- Layering Effects – overlapping different visuals and text for a more immersive user experience.
- Interactive Visuals – maps, timelines, and graphics that users can manipulate.
- Audio Integration – background music or sound effects that naturally enhance your visual story.
You can have a lot of fun testing out different elements and themes, but be sure you don’t stray from your underlying brand identity or story and that everything you design is fully mobile-responsive.
Making the Most Out of Scrollytelling
Storyboarding your website is a good way to start this design process. Think of it as a ride at an amusement park with an immersive theme that tells a story and a CTA at the end. It’s kind of like the gift shops you’re funnelled into after enjoying an immersive ride at Disney World.
Be sure to define your brand well and plan a logical narrative flow. Use layouts and components to visualise this flow so it reflects the story you wish to convey. Once you have a smooth layout, mock up your visual elements, and optimise everything with the SEO-infused text you’ll need to rank higher on search results.
By the end, you’ll have a smooth experience you can pass over to your graphics team and website designers to upload during development.
Summing Up
Scrollytelling ensures your NFP website visitors feel more engaged with your mission. It blends traditional storytelling with an interactive layer that naturally unfolds the more your users scroll through your website.
At Web 105, we stay up to date on all the latest website design and development techniques. Having worked with countless Australian healthcare providers, government organisations, and NFPs, we understand the need to blend technological advancements with stunning visual elements.
Let’s find a rewarding design layout perfect for telling your story. Reach out today and let our team of professional designers and developers bring your NFP to life with a new website.
FAQs
What is the scrollytelling technique?
Telling a story on your website with elements that appear, move, disappear, or change as users scroll through the content.
Is scrollytelling accessible?
Yes, you can use shorthand (like including alt-text tags for visual elements) and theming to ensure a broad audience enjoys your website design and layout.
What is immersive scrolling?
Immersive scrolling is another term for scrollytelling. It reflects using engaging and interactive elements that get progressively more exciting as users scroll through your website content.