6 CSS tricks to help spice up your web design

A well-designed website will help attract visitors and create a positive user experience for your site visitors. As well as being useable and functional, a website will also need to incorporate design elements to help create those positive experiences and capture attention. Using advanced CSS can help you to create a stunning web design. To make your website more appealing to users, consider these 6 CSS tricks…

Is web design an art or a science?

What is CSS?

Cascading Style Sheets (or CSS) is a style sheet language that allows you to specify the design and presentation of a website. CSS is used to assist HTML to create more dynamic and visually appealing websites, which is something that HTML alone cannot achieve.

HyperText Markup Language (or HTML), is a markup language that works by creating and structuring a webpage and its content. Creating a website with HTML alone will leave it looking lifeless.

CSS is most widely used in websites for basic styling, such as changing colour and size of any content (such as text), as well as formatting and styling the layout of content. However, CSS can accomplish much more than this.

If you are using CSS within your web design, look at these 6 tricks you can use to help spice up your web design.

CSS tricks

1.      Smooth scrolling

Our first CSS trick is smooth scrolling. Long web pages or pillar pages are ideal for smooth scrolling. Similarly, any page with HTML anchors can benefit from smooth scrolling. Typically, an anchor link will link to a content anchor either on the same page or on a different page. This creates a quick and uncomfortable jump that can appear jarring to users when the page suddenly jumps straight to another position. Instead, you can create a smooth transition using CSS to create a more natural and flowing scroll that leads a user to the destination.

Implement the following code into your website for smooth scrolling:

scroll-behaviour: smooth

2.      Custom buttons

Buttons are an essential part of web design that either leads a user to another webpage or encourage a call-to-action. Using HTML alone will only allow you to include either a text link or an image button. CSS can help provide you with a solution to create more dynamic and responsive buttons.

You can add many different design features to a CSS button, including a hover effect, colour change and font size. Carefully consider the colours you use in your buttons to increase click-through rate.

To begin, start by using the button styling.

Then, you have many options for changing the design, including:

.button {

Background-color: [use a hex value]

Border: [the border around the button]

Border-radius: [set a value to determine the roundness of the button]

Color: [the colour of the button text]

Padding: [the space around the text and the button’s border]

Text-align: [the position of the text in the button]

Font-size: [the size of the text]

To put it into practice, here’s an example:

CSS code for a button with hover effect

And the result:

An example of a button coded with CSS

There are also more advanced CSS3 styling options available to really make your buttons stand out. Check out the examples here.

3.      Parallax scrolling

A web design trend that has taken off in the last couple of years, parallax scrolling involves changing the scrolling of different elements to give the illusion of depth and perspective. Parallax scrolling has been made possible with HTML 5 and CSS3, and as such, has been used many times across the web.

Parallax scrolling can be used in many different instances, such as using SVG graphics to create different depths, or by having elements scrolling over a background.

For some parallax scrolling CSS and JavaScript snippets visit Speckyboy.

4.      Ellipsis overflowing text

It’s something we’ve all encountered. Overlapping or overflowing text occurs when the text in a given space doesn’t fit. This can leave text getting cut off, areas looking overcrowded, or text overflowing outside its container.

Overlapping or overflowing text can be a nightmare, but fortunately another CSS trick can help to solve this problem. Using the Ellipsis property allows you to truncate text:

.text {

White-space: nowrap;

Overflow: hidden;

Text-overflow: ellipsis;

}

5.      Gradients

Gradients are increasingly popular in web design, helping to create more stylish and unique websites. Given the endless possibilities available for creating gradients, it should be no surprise they have become a CSS feature of choice for web designers.

Gone are the days of creating a gradient in Photoshop, and then adding it to your website as an image. Now, thanks to CSS3, you can create a gradient within your CSS stylesheet.

Creating a gradient in CSS in surprisingly easy:

body{

background: linear-gradient(to right,#000,#0575e6);

}

The result:

A gradient coded with CSS

There are also tools available online to generate gradient code, saving you time and effort.

6.      Animations

Our final CSS tip you can take advantage of is animations. Another feature made possible with CSS3; you can now create stylish animations that help bring your website design to life.

CSS is ideal for simple animations, without having to use other code such as JavaScript. And unlike JavaScript animations (which can really slow down your website), CSS animations run well without affecting your site speed. Just don’t overdo it!

There are so many sub-properties you can use to help create stylish and appealing animations. From the duration of the animation to the number of times the animation repeats itself. With so many choices, the possibilities are almost endless. Find out more about creating stylish animations in CSS.

Incorporating these simple yet effective CSS tricks can help to transform your website and spice up your web design. The more appealing and attractive your website, the more users are likely to stick around and convert into paying customers. Providing a positive user experience with an effective web design will help to build trust and create a positive brand image. Have a go at implementing some of these tips into your web design!

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