Narration via Navigation – Why Single Scroll Websites Are the New Trend!

Back in 2012, when Chris Lake, in a blog for Econsultancy LLC (US), argued that single scroll websites would be a trend of the future, few would have taken him seriously. Through the late 90s and up until a few years ago, designers would shudder to think of what would happen if they made their users scroll. The logic was that if users don't scroll, content gets neglected and hence as much content possible was crammed into the frame upfront and the website was divided into pages or sections.
What Triggered It?
Somewhere post the launch of Apple's iPhone, a number of handheld touch devices flooded the market - from low cost tablets to high end smartphones. Eventually, as these became more mainstream, scrolling became a preferred form of navigation as compared to clicking or tapping. At the same time, the dependence of rich and lengthy content too was on the rise. These two trends came together to form the parallax scrolling revolution.
Why is it So Popular?
That it is good looking is not required to be emphasized upon. We are all suckers for good design and single scroll websites seem like we've hit the quintessence of our beautiful-design abilities! Single scroll websites allow the focus to be on quality content (emphasized text, images, videos, etc.) and can carry loads of it without a glitch. Moreover, as compared to Flash (which is heavy, buggy, and inconsistently supported by platforms anyways), single scroll websites are search engines friendly.
One of designers' and webmasters' most common nightmare during the Internet's early days was having a visitor land on any page of the website through search engines and the visitor leaving without checking the rest of the website. Single scroll websites give you the freedom to put all of your content on the same page. This essentially means that almost all of your content is visible to the visitor no matter what he/she searched for and how he/she landed on your website.
Single scroll websites also effectuate better narrative. Having to make the visitor hop from page to page to know more about you or your products/services on offer is agonizing for the visitor. Single Scroll websites lend a flow to how you are narrating stories about you. You can start with a history of the company, take the narrative down to first product, second product, testimonials, and finally contact information. It seems like one entity because it basically behaves like one entity. This linear flow of your website keeps the visitor hooked and encourages interactivity in the form of social sharing.
In Retrospectionr
Single scroll websites are a fantastic ploy of executed well. They are appealing, and hence, can propel the visitor to participate more - be it in the form of sharing on social networking sites, or subscribe to a newsletter, or buy a product or service from your online store. Single scroll websites are charming to look at, easy to use, cutting-edge to execute, and productive in delivery - that's a lot in one go!