Do you like people who are warm and friendly or cold and hostile? You’ve got it right! I’m comparing Interactive to Non-interactive (static) websites here. In this increasingly digital generation, it isn’t sufficient to place some content on your website and wait for it to work its magic. Providing a web User experience without interactivity is like opening a store filled with inventory without a salesperson to interact with. 

When you create an interactive website, you are forming a connection with your audience. It propels a two-way communication on a medium where you cannot directly interact with a user. Studies have proven that people are more likely to convert on, return to or recommend websites that are interactive. Drupal CMS offers a wide variety of interactive themes and modules that can be easily adapted to your website and further customized. Let's discuss more about interactive websites and interactive Drupal website designs.

What is an interactive website?

Put simply, an interactive website is a website that communicates and allows for interaction with users. And by interaction, we don’t just mean allowing users to “click” and “scroll”. Offering users with content that is amusing, collaborative, and engaging is the essential objective of an interactive website. An interactive websites design will not just display attractive content, it will exhibit interactive content. Content that will compel users to communicate and deeply engage with the website. 
 

Why do you need Interactive design websites?

Today, all businesses in the digital market are racing to expand their audience. Most of them, however, forget that increasing traffic is simply not enough. Retaining and engaging users is what converts. Engaging your users should be your prime motive and for this you will first need an interactive business website. 

• Drives more engagement. Interactive business websites can make your website less boring, thus garnering more action. 
• Users will spend more time on a website that interacts with them. This increases your conversion rate, decreases bounce rate and can boost the SEO of your website.
• Interactive design websites develop a more personalized user experience that can result in happy users. 
• Engaged users are more likely to maintain a long-term relationship with websites.
• Interactive design websites can create lasting effects in user’s minds. This improves your brand awareness and reach. 
• Interactive websites encourage users to recommend your website and link back to it.
• More conversions mean you have a better chance of making a sale!

How to make interactive websites? 

Creating an interactive website from scratch is easier and more effective as you envision and plan the customer journey from day one. There are tons of interactive website builders to choose from to create interactive design websites easily. Nevertheless, if you already have a website that you think is static or needs more interactive website features, it is never too late. The first step is to define your business objectives and then identify various touchpoints from where you can interact with your customers.

If budgets and timelines are constraints you could also look at HTML5 interactive website templates (not recommended if you need customizations). There are various interactive website builders that offer features that can increase user engagement but you should pick the ones that suit your business goals. For example, if you sell financial services, having an interest calculator in your website can prove to be very useful. Nonetheless, the most essential interactive feature that you just cannot ignore is responsiveness. Users will respond to your website on various devices only when it looks and feels presentable.

So what kind of interactive website features or elements can you utilize for your benefit?

Social Media Applications

There is no denying that Social media marketing can give you the visibility like no other marketing programs if done right. Provide your users with an option to like and share your content on social media platforms like LinkedIn Twitter or Facebook. Or just to be able to follow your page. You can also display live feed from your social media page to keep users updated. 

Simple Interactive Tools

Offer your users with simple interactive tools like Quizzes, short Games, math tools, tax calculators, etc. connected to your business objectives. Integrating simple software tools that can provide your users with instant results have proven to boost user engagement. 

Interactive Page Elements

You can enhance your page elements by adding something interesting and attractive to it. For example, colourful and dynamic hover-states on links or images, on-scroll or on-click loading/animation, navigation with clicks on image stories, and much more. Add videos or animations to say more about your business in an interactive way.

Forms and Feedback

Allowing users to get in touch with you via a contact form is a great way to connect with them. Not only does it let you increase your database of leads, it is a nice way of saying “We care”. Feedback forms lets you identify your strengths and weaknesses via the best source – your audience! 

Chat Widgets

What’s better than a live person chatting with you, answering all your questions about the products or services being offered?! That’s probably the highest level of interactivity you can offer in an interactive business website. If live chat sounds like too much commitment, you could also opt for Chatbots that can be configured to answer predictive questions.

User-generated Content

Letting users add their content on your website is a great way to improve interactivity. This can be done in the form of Comments (in your blogs/articles section), inviting them to write guest posts, submit images or even creating a small discussion forum.

Other interactive design websites Features

You can get creative with the interactive features you want for your audience but here’s a brief list of commonly used interactive elements –

• Google Maps makes you a more trust-worthy brand and provide a great way to improve interaction especially when they are clickable.
• Newsletters can keep your users coming back to your website for more updates.
• Voting and showing them results of previous polls helps increase engagement.
• Search functionalities eases the user from the pain of navigating through your website.
• Ratings can be a quick and interactive method of getting instant feedback that can improve your products/services/work.
• Slideshows offer a great way to engage users and can make them want to keep going to the next image.

Drupal for Interactive Websites

When you build your website with Drupal, you will come across multiple options in the form of modules and features that can instantly turn your static website into an interactive one. With Drupal 9, responsiveness comes out of the box. Which means that you don’t need any additional modules to make your Drupal website design look great irrespective of the devices. In addition there are a variety of modules that encourage interactivity like the Search API, Contact forms module, Social Media module, Slideshow module,  SimpleNews (or newsletters) and much more!