How To Elevate Brand Experience Through Interactive Web Design

Most internet users (75%) judge a brand’s credibility based on their web design. In this guide, we will help you develop an interactive web design to create a memorable, frustration-free experience personalized to your target audience.

We will explain how different interactive elements work and give you the best ways to use them. We also include real-world interactive websites as examples to show you how popular brands use them to tell compelling stories and actively engage with their audience.

3 Popular Interactive Elements To Elevate Your Brand Experience

Discover the different types of interactive elements and how they work. We will explain its best practices and provide tools to help you effectively incorporate them into your interactive web design.

1. Interactive Navigation Menus To Improve Usability

Not everyone is comfortable using a mouse. So, adding accessible navigation menus is an excellent addition to help users hop from one web page to another and quickly find the information they need using only a keyboard. When creating an accessible navigation menu, you’ll need proper HTML structuring and ARIA (Accessible Rich Internet Applications) labels.

1.1 Build Proper HTML Structure

Write accurate HTML codes to describe every element in your web design. Each should have a clear purpose and use the right tags to make the navigation logical and content more understandable. Here are the common HTML tags you can use to provide structure.

You should also ensure all interactive elements respond to the Tab (move the focus) and Enter (activate an element) keys.

• Common native interactive elements: Use HTML tags like <button>, <a>, and <input> 
• Custom interactive elements: Use the tabindex attribute and make sure its value is always “0” to make a natural flow

Use Axe DevTools to check how accessible your current navigation menu is.

axe DevTools: Your AI Partner for Digital Accessibility Testing

1.2 Set ARIA (Accessible Rich Internet Applications) Labels

Assistive technologies couldn’t describe icons and other elements without text. ARIA labels are the attributes you must set to provide additional context about the element’s purpose and functions. They should be concise and specific.

ARIA labels should also be action-oriented (ex. aria-label=”Add to cart”). This sets the user’s expectations, giving them more confidence to complete tasks. For images, ARIA labels function differently:

• Decorative images: Skip entirely as it doesn’t convey important information
• Image links: Describe the action or link’s destination (ex. “Go to about page”)
• Images with alt text: Not needed; unless the image requires extra clarification (maps, infographics, or any complex images)
• Role-specific images: Assign roles and landmarks to help screen readers how to navigate your website (ex. presentation, scrollbar, or drag & drop attributes)

If you have no idea where to start, you can use WAVE (Web Accessibility Evaluation Tool). It will help you identify which areas you should add ARIA labels.

Introduction to WAVE

Best Interactive Website Example With Excellent Interactive Navigation Menu

Simple, intuitive, and easy to use is what Apple delivers when designing its navigation menu. Each of its menu items is clearly labeled to avoid confusion and be keyboard-friendly.

Apple also ensures its website’s menu adjusts well to smaller screens and touch interactions. On mobile, it uses a hamburger menu icon (☰) to keep the navigation organized and easy to use, while saving space.

Its background video, stunning visuals, and other elements also resize automatically to ensure it will look great on any device. This also speeds up your web pages’ loading times.

Aside from navigation, there are more things you can learn from Apple’s brand experience. Leo9 Design analyzes Apple’s ecosystem, culture, and community. Here, we have discovered how the brand consistently creates memorable experiences for customers and stands out from the competition.

Key Takeaway

An accessible and interactive navigation menu encourages your target audience and visitors to explore more of your site. When they are happy and satisfied, they are more likely to share their positive experiences with others. This will help your brand stand out from your competitors and get a positive image.

2. Interactive Features For Accessibility

User abilities, content, and nature of interactions are a few factors you should consider when adding interactive accessibility features. Green Supply sets an excellent example of a brand that understands and meets all of its customers’ needs and challenges—visual, hearing, motor, or cognitive.

As standard, they create a keyboard navigation menu using the above methods to help users with low vision or blindness explore their website. If the users have different needs, they can use the accessibility dashboard.

In this dashboard, users can customize their browsing experience based on their preferences:

Beneficiaries	Accessibility Features
Older users	Bigger text, bigger cursor, readable fonts, read page, & high contrast
Users with ADHD	Reading masks, highlight links, stop animations, & page structure
New or unfamiliar users	Tooltips & page structure
Users with color blindness	Invert colors, contrast, grayscale, & Saturation
Users with motor disabilities	Bigger cursor, keyboard navigation (Tab & Enter support), & read page
Users with visual impairments	Bigger text, bigger cursor, invert colors, contrast, Grayscale, brightness, read page, highlight links, readable fonts, & dyslexic font
Users with cognitive disabilities	Tooltips, reading line, reading masks, page structure, stop animations, hide images, & read page

ASOS, on the other hand, focuses more on its content accessibility. They follow WCAG 2.1 (Web Content Accessibility Guidelines) level AA standards. These are the standards to make web content more accessible and user-friendly.

WCAG 2.1 revolves around 4 core principles to ensure accessibility. Each describes what elements you will add and who will benefit from it.

Core Principle	Purpose	Key Success Criteria	What To Avoid
Perceivable	Clearly see or hear the content	Text alternatives & time-based media	Low contrast between background & text
Operable	Fully usable & navigable	Keyboard support, options to pause or extend time limits, & function well through various inputs (keyboard, voice, etc.)	Content that can cause seizures & auto-scrolling
Understandable	Web pages should be easy to read & use; also behave in predictable ways	Consistent navigation, button placement, & interactions	Inconsistent layouts & vague error messages
Robust	Cross-browser & cross-device compatibility	Implement responsive design techniques & ARIA live regions for dynamic updates	Non-standard HTML or CSS

The best thing about ASOS is that they are open to suggestions regarding their site’s accessibility. They even created a dedicated User Voice platform where users can raise questions, concerns, and recommendations. The brand will make sure to address and resolve them promptly.

Key Takeaway

When you integrate accessibility into your interactive web design, it shows your commitment to making everyone feel valued and respected. This makes your site more inviting, helping you reach out and build deeper trust with a wider audience.

3. Interactive Content To Increase User Engagement

Digital content is a great way to show off your expertise or talk about the latest trend in your niche. But even though it’s helpful, it still doesn’t get much engagement from readers. Instead of letting them passively consume the information, you can add interactivity to your content to create a more engaging and memorable brand experience.

Here’s how interactivity improves your content and influences your audience.

• Sparks curiosity and motivate readers to learn more or explore further
• Combines information with entertainment, which holds the reader’s attention better
• Invites your audience to actively participate with your content through clicks, feedback, etc.

Here are different types of interactivity you can add to your digital content.

3.1 Quizzes

Quizzes are an excellent way to get real-time interaction with your audience. It makes learning fun while providing immediate benefits. CeraVe is an excellent example of a brand that uses quizzes to support its sales funnel’s awareness stage.

The quiz is about collecting valuable insights about their audience’s skin type, skincare goals, and whether they have post-acne marks. From their responses, CeraVe will determine what specific product and personalized acne routine they can recommend to each prospect. Here is what makes CeraVe’s personalized acne routine quiz effective and engaging:

• Mobile-friendly
• Uses casual, conversational language to make it approachable
• Adds attractive product image, clear fonts, and an intuitive layout
• Include a strong call to action to encourage participants to take the next step
• Keep it short (3-question quiz) and focused on the audience’s needs and pain points

3.2 Resource Library

A resource library makes your content more accessible to your community. It’s a centralized hub where they get answers to their questions/problems or learn something new.

In general, a resource library isn’t interactive. But you can add a few interactive elements in its user interface design to make that happen. Genius is an excellent example of a brand that successfully added interactivity to its resource library.

They initially start with a blog to share expert advice about outsourcing, recruiting, and team Building. Over time, it evolved into a go-to destination:

• Applicants find resources and tools for upskilling, preparation for interviews, and career advice
• Employers and recruiters find industry trends and best practices to hire talents and build a positive work culture

They open a comment section to encourage readers to participate in discussions or ask questions. They also offer downloadable templates and easy-to-use tools. Making these interactive, Genius not only improves the user experience but also adds an extra layer of value and convenience.

If you are offering interactive tutorials like Canva, you can embed videos for walkthroughs and product demos to make the learning process more effective. Your audience will likely remember what they learned and explore more content that resonates with them.

3.3 Other Interactive Media For Content

There’s no standard rule on how many interactive elements you should add to your content. As long as it serves a clear purpose and improves your site’s user experience, you can add as many as needed. Here are more options you can add to create an interactive website design.

Interactive Media	Purpose	Tools & Best Practices	Brand Examples
Calculators	User encode their data to get personalized results	Use Outgrow to create calculators;Give clear & complete instructions	Zillow’s mortgage calculator
Infographics	User clicks any section & it will reveal more details	Use Visme to create simple & hassle-free infographics;Add stunning graphics & hover effects for quick access to hidden information instead of clicking	Rei‘s interactive infographics for outdoor activities, gear selection, & industry practices
Maps	Users explore different locations & click on it to see more details	Use Mapbox to add customizable maps with various styles & data layers;Add clear markers & information pop-ups	Airbnb‘s interactive maps show property locations, landmarks, & nearby attractions
Live Chat or Chatbots	Users reach out to customer service representatives in real-time	Use Zendesk Chat to create customizable chat widgets & chatbots;Ensure prompt responses & include an option for a human fallback	Sephora’s live chat for product recommendations & assistance
360° Views	Let users explore a product from all angles	Use 3D Vista to create 360° panoramas, hotspots, & virtual tours;Use high-resolution images & zoom functionality	IKEA‘s 360° views

Key Takeaway for interactive web design

Aside from engaging and fun, people are naturally drawn to interactive content because it gives them control over their experience. They have the freedom to choose what to explore and engage and make a decision when they are ready. In the end, it gives them a more satisfactory and memorable experience.

3 Best Practices For Interactive Web Design

Check out these best practices to make a stronger impression on your customers when they engage with your brand.

I. Add Appealing & Relevant Visual Elements To Boost User’s Retention

Visual elements are the first things people notice. Make sure that you pick the ones that help shape how they positively feel about your brand. All visual elements you choose should complement one another and be placed with ample room to breathe (white space). 

Here are the visual elements you should add, check, and update when designing your interactive site.

Visual Element	Purpose	Best Practice
Font	All text information is legible across all devices & platforms	Limit your font choices up to 3 typeface families (title, subhead, & body)
Logo	Brand’s face & identity	Create multiple versions of your logo (up to 4) to fit well on various uses and online platforms
Colors	Set the mood & attract attention (ex. bold colors highlight important elements/information)	Stick with a limited color palette (up to 3) & ensure it reflects your brand’s values
Sliders	Display multiple elements (text, graphics, or videos) per sliding block	Use sliders with a clear purpose & do not use auto-scrolling slides
Images & Graphics	Convey information quickly & guide the reader’s attention to the important information	Use original professional images for brand-specific content & stock photos for generic content
Gamification Elements	Motivate or incentivize users to complete an action	Provide meaningful rewards per action type: earning points for simple actions & discounts or exclusive access for much more complex tasks

II. Apply Proper SEO For Interactive Sites

Modern web design isn’t only for human readers. You should also make it easy for search engines like Google, to find and understand it.

Search engines and modern web designs both focus on responsiveness. So, make sure your interactive design has responsive interfaces that work smoothly on various devices (desktops, tablets, and smartphones).

You can use a combination of flexible grids and layouts, and CSS media queries. When the user switches devices, your interactive site will automatically adjust to the new device’s screen resolution, image size, and scripting abilities. Here are other SEO strategies you can apply:

• Micro-interactions should complement the visual elements to make it feel natural
• Offer multilingual content to reach a wider audience (avoid automated translation)
• Minimize code for parallax scrolling to prevent slowing down your site’s loading speed
• Use simple hover animations and ensure they are accessible in screen readers or keyboard support
• Use Breadcrumb to improve your site structure and indexing, and provide search engines with more context
• Use a single URL for your website to reduce duplicate issues and simplify search engine’s indexing process
• Landing pages should include the target keywords in the title tag, meta description, headers, and throughout the content
• Pick the best image file type (PNGs and GIFs), resize before you upload, and compress images to speed up loading times
• Create clear, user-centric navigation with descriptive menu labels (include relevant keywords) to help search engines crawl your site more effectively

III. Interactive Storytelling Through Website Design

Interactive storytelling is a narrative technique that allows users to change the story’s direction/result based on their choices. It effectively transforms passive browsing into a more immersive experience. Spotify Wrapped is one of the best interactive websites that uses personal interactive storytelling.

Spotify Wrapped revisits your most-played songs and other music listening habits. From these insights, they will create a unique narrative and match it with interactive features (animations, data visualizations, etc.) to complete the story. At the end of the year, they will present it to you and let you listen to your personalized music journey.

Interactive storytelling is also popular for video games (ex. The Witcher series) and storytelling apps (ex. Choose Your Own Adventure). If you want to apply it as well, you should:

• Design your story in a way that encourages exploration
• Seamlessly integrate all your multimedia into your narrative
• Offer multiple story paths with consistent storytelling style and quality
• Each video, animation, audio, and graphic you add must serve a purpose
• Provide clear and meaningful choices that impact immediate outcomes and long-term consequences

Conclusion for Interactive Web Design

Brand experience is about creating meaningful and lasting connections with your audience. Interactive web design can make that happen as long as you understand who your customers are and what they care about (including their pain points). Turn these insights into an interactive format, and you will encourage more people to join in and engage.

Also, take a moment to explore our best interactive web design examples and consider which element suits your current strategies. If you are ready to enhance your brand experience, Leo9 Design can help. They provide creative web design solutions that help us transform our ideas into unique digital designs and experiences.

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Author Bio:

Sarah Mitchell is a freelance writer dedicated to producing premium blog content for entrepreneurs and SMBs. Her work helps them streamline their content marketing and you may recognize her name from platforms like Hubspot, Outbrain, Flippa, and many more.