The horizontal scroll section is a powerful tool to elevate your project. It enables you to showcase content in a captivating side-scrolling format, creating a visually stunning experience. When vertical space is limited, horizontal scrolling allows you to display additional content without cluttering the layout and would allow you to optimize your space utilization. Whether you're on a desktop or mobile device, the horizontal scroll sections will enhance your overall user engagement and interaction.
This guide will take you through the steps of utilizing this dynamic feature in your project.
Note: To enable horizontal scrolling, you'll need to include more than one horizontal scroll section.
Designing Horizontal Scroll Sections
Designing effective horizontal scroll sections involves careful consideration of layout, content, and user experience. Here are some key steps to design a compelling horizontal scroll:
Identify the right content that benefits from horizontal scrolling, such as image galleries, timelines, or interactive data visualizations.
Ensure that your horizontal scroll sections are responsive and touch-friendly for seamless navigation on mobile devices.
Provide intuitive navigation controls, such as arrows or swipe gestures, to guide users through the horizontal scroll content.
Maintain a consistent design language and visual hierarchy to ensure coherence across your horizontal scroll sections.
Watch Our Horizontal Scrolling Masterclass
Get an in-depth look at how to build your very own horizontal scrolling website without writing any code. In this masterclass, you’ll get a walkthrough of basic techniques, how to add custom animations and shapes, and how to build multiple sections that create the scrolling effect.
When to Use Horizontal Scroll: Use Cases
Horizontal scrolling is suitable for various use cases, including:
Timelines: Displaying chronological events or milestones in a horizontal layout provides a natural progression for users to explore.
Image Galleries: Presenting a collection of images in a horizontal scroll allows users to view them sequentially with minimal effort.
Data Visualization: Visualizing complex data sets, such as charts or graphs, horizontally can enhance comprehension and exploration.
Storytelling: Crafting narrative-driven content with a horizontal scroll can create an immersive storytelling experience for users.
Take a look at this hit list of innovative horizontal scrolling websites to inspire your next web project. 🌟
Troubleshooting Horizontal Scroll Issues
Here are some common issues and troubleshooting tips:
Optimize your content and minimize the use of heavy graphics or animations to improve scrolling performance and prevent scrolling lag.
Test your horizontal scroll sections on a variety of mobile devices with different screen sizes and resolutions. This helps identify any discrepancies between the design in the editor and how it appears on the published page.
Ensure that your horizontal scroll sections and the content in horizontal scroll sections are accessible to users with disabilities by providing alternative navigation methods and descriptive text.
Consider using responsive units like viewport (vw) and viewport height (vh) for components within your horizontal scroll sections. This ensures that the size and positioning of elements adapt proportionally to the viewport dimensions, maintaining consistency across devices. Read more about sizing your components here.
Limitations
Here are some potential drawbacks to consider:
Compatibility Issues with Sticky Position / Sticky Animation add-on: Horizontal scroll sections may not be compatible with those that rely on vertical scrolling behavior, e.g. Sticky Position / Sticky Animation add-ons. These add-ons may struggle to calculate or transform from the vertical to the horizontal axis, leading to unpredictable or undesirable behavior.
Compatibility Issues with the Anchor add-on: Currently, adding anchors to horizontal scrolling sections is only functional for the first horizontal section within a row. Consequently, if there are, for instance, four horizontal sections consecutively arranged and an anchor is added to any of these sections, the link will only scroll to the first one. We are actively working to provide an alternative solution or fix for this issue in the near future.