Every website is built for a specific goal or purpose with its functionalities. The essential functions that make up websites are static in nature, but every website deserves a good UI and UX (User Interface and User Experience).
The UX of a website deals with responsiveness, whereas the UI brings a website to life for the client.
A site that responds to a user clicking or performing a mouse event, makes the user feels the website responds to whatever he or she is trying to do to it, thereby creating a feedback loop between the user/client and the site.
For WordPress website owners, adding interactive features is simple. All you need is the right plugin and an idea of the experience you want to provide.
1. Interactive Map Plugin
One of the most popular interactive features on a site is an interactive map. A static view of your region is no longer enough for online leads. As a business owner, it is very vital to install one to help customers locate you.
It doesn’t take much time to install one of the many interactive map plugins and configure it for your business address.
Below is an example of an interactive map you can add to your site.
Interactive World Map
The interactive world map WordPress plugin gives you an easy way to install and customize a professional-looking interactive world map with 16 clickable regions, then insert the shortcode in any page or post to display the map on your WordPress website.
Key Features
- Visual editor – Coding knowledge is NOT required.
- Well-organized interface, easy-to-use map dashboard.
- Responsive and Mobile Friendly
- You can use the map shortcode on as many pages as you want to display the map.
- Works perfectly on desktops along with smartphones.
2. Live Forms and Surveys
In the world today, data is described as the "new oil". This data helps us make better decisions based on our daily activities and needs. Having a form on your site that helps users collect data plays a very vital role in web design. You and the clients benefit when you better understand their needs. The right user interface can make your questions fun to answer, which will win more willing responses and greater data collection.
Let's take a look below at an example plugin that could be of great and massive help for data collection functionalities.
Pesi Questionnaire
Pesi Questionnaire is a WordPress plugin solution for creating a simple survey with a score point system. You can survey your visitor behavior and make prediction solutions based on result scores. Multiple result page opinions bring a more accurate solution.
Key Features
- Result email
- The unlimited choice to answer each question
- Stored result ( since the 1.0.1 version )
- Multiresult page opinion (depending on result score)
- Re-usable question.
- Live update
- 6 Types of choice answer ( Yes/No choice, Single choice/radio select), Multiple select/checkbox select, Single text field, Image select ).
- Result scoring.
3. Live Chat with Humans or Chatbots
The use of Live Chats on websites has been growing over the years. Live Chats have emerged from cutting-edge to become an industry standard. A Live Chat could be a team of associates or a savvy chatbot that's ready to answer clients' questions on the site in real-time.
Combine this with a UI that responds every time they type or send a message and it’s clear why this feature has become so widespread
Below is a Live Chat Plugin for WordPress that will help you with this purpose and has many more features beyond just a live chat capability.
WP Guppy Pro
WP-Guppy is a well thought and clinically designed and developed WordPress chat plugin which has been engineered to fulfill the market needs. It is loaded with features without compromising on quality.
This plugin prides itself on using its built-in database which means that it will be integrated into your WordPress site database and you get to keep complete control of how you manage your data etc.
Key Features
- Whatsapp chat
- Customer support chat for admin
- Guest user chat
- SMS and email notifications for unread messages(Paid extension)
- Admin access on all the chats from the back-end
- Voice note
- Send current location with open street maps
- Blocked users listing
4. Photo Galleries
Galleries are essential for many websites, from charity groups to business owners, and many more. This gallery shows clients the result of past works. This gallery act as an essential aspect to turn leads into customers, or donors as in the case of a charity website.
Below is a beautiful gallery plugin that I strongly suggest you can use on your WordPress website with outstanding features.
Smart Photo Gallery
Turn native WordPress [gallery] into Smart Photo Galleries with albums, fullscreen mode, and 3D transition effects. Unlimited scalability, compatible with all major browsers, responsive, retina, and touch friendly. Use the latest technologies like CSS3 and Vector Icons. Perfect to showcase photographers' work.
Key Features
- Use Native WordPress [gallery] Shortcode
- Built-in Shortcode Generator
- Draggable Zoom Feature
- Responsive Slider Mode
- Easy Gallery Albums
- Fully Responsive Layout
- CSS3 Transition Effects
- Highly Customizable
5. Animated Images & Infographics
Animated images are a way to add charm to your website design. Small animations of simple vector graphics can literally bring your web page to life.
Infographics are among the best examples of animated graphic use. Each stat in an animated infographic can demonstrate the point being made. The depiction of figures taking action, boxes moving, data flowing, and more can help viewers better understand what is being conveyed.
Let's take a look below at a good plugin that we can use for this purpose.
Lottier
Add and manage animated images using the Lottier WordPress plugin for WordPress Editor ( aka Gutenberg ). The plugin is perfect for features demonstrating your project, showing different processes, calls to action, or just for fun. Such animations make your site more attractive and increase the conversion and engagement of your customers.
This plugin uses the library of JSON animations from lottefiles.com. The animation library includes thousands of exciting animations made by professional designers from around the world. You can easily pick up an animation that suits your site and your customers and use it in just two clicks. Such a tool can improve any type of WordPress site and design, whether it be Blog, Portfolio, Corporate Website, Creative Agency, eCommerce Project, Personal CV, Restaurant, or Magazine.
Key Features
- Lottie library with over a thousand free animations
- Custom animation options
- Seo Friendly
- Fast and smooth installing
- Customizable background colors, animation speed, width, and height
- Online animation styles editor
- Lightweight and Fast
- Installation Guide and detailed Users Manual
6. 360 Viewer Walkthrough
The 360 viewer is available through a variety of current WordPress plugins and extensions. The 360-degree viewer allows users to “walk” through a virtual environment and look around at their surroundings. Using a plugin that provides this functionality, provides an extra feel to your website by helping visitors/clients on your site to see in-depth every image, be it a product image or any image describing something of good importance.
We have a plugin that will serve particularly excellent for this purpose and will advise you to get a hold of it.
Easy 360° Product Viewer WordPress Plugin
Easy 360° Product Viewer it’s a rich-feature and unique WordPress plugin with a fully responsive layout that allows you to display a large number of images from different angles of a 2D or 3D product offering control over the layout in the way that pleases you most, allowing the user to rotate, pan or zoom the images. Additionally, it has an awesome feature called deep zooming, when the image is zoomed it can be viewed in great detail by loading a more detailed version of the image this way allows the usage of high-resolution images without compression.
Key Features
- Easy to use and install
- Fast CSS3 & JavaScript
- Deep zooming
- Data Drag and spin
- Lazy loading
- Lazy scrolling
- Pinch and zoom gestures
- Keyboard support
7. Interactive Social Walls
Social media has spread like the suburbs into websites and brands across the internet. Rather than staying limited to the giants like Facebook and Twitter, we’ve found that users enjoy forming individual social media groups on smaller platforms as well. Brands with user membership, profiles, and messaging can benefit from adding an interactive social wall.
If you are looking to integrate this social wall into your WordPress website, let's take a look below at a very good plugin that could help you achieve this goal.
Social Stream Designer - Instagram Facebook Twitter Feed - Social media Feed Grid Gallery Plugin
WP Social Stream Designer plugin is Perfect for this. This plugin is used to get social media content from various platforms like Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, RSS, and many more to give you a beautiful responsive wall on your WordPress website. You can combine all of your social networks feeds into a single network stream or display one social network feeds with different designs and layouts.
Key Features
- Twitter: home timeline, user feed, search feeds by * (any keyword) including hashtags, user lists, likes
- Facebook: posts of page, posts from the album, all albums with its posts, posts of events, posts of group
- Youtube: user feed, channel, playlist, and search
- Tumblr: photos
- Flickr: photos by tag, public photos of user
- Instagram: public photos by username and hashtag
- Pinterest: latest pins and public boards
- Vimeo: public videos of users, channels, albums, groups, and liked videos of user
8. Voice Command and Response
Voice command allows you to up your disabled-user accessibility game. Build voice commands and responsive features into your website now and you’ll be by the time your competitors are getting into the game.
Let's take a look at a good voice command and response plugin we advise you to use on your WordPress site.
Virtual Assistant for WordPress
Virtual Assistant, Voice command for WordPress, build your own Google Now, Siri, or Cortana.
Key Features
- Unlimited Voice Commands you can create for Virtual Assistant.
- Scroll down, up, middle, top, bottom, to element, to position you want
- Work in Back-end & Front-end
- Support almost all languages on this planet
- Speech: make your blog speak
- Click on any element on your page
- Go to create new Posts or Pages, Products, Tags, Categories, etc…
- Add product to cart (Woocommerce)
9. Adaptive Themes & Backgrounds
Dark mode has taken the internet by storm, as many users switch almost entirely to a white-on-gray browsing style. The right use of color for your website depends on your brand and ideal user experience, and you can expand that with responsive themes to enhance each user’s personal experience of the brand.
Darkr
WordPress Light/Dark theme plugin which can change the appearance of the WordPress admin and login page. It’s compatible with thousands of WordPress plugins by default. You can customize the dark mode background text and color as you want with the custom color feature.
Key Features
- Change the admin colors
- Rename/Remove the menu/submenu on the left
- Change global colors
- Change the login page logo
10. Interactive Booking and Calendars
A calendar is very much useful when your business offers consultations and appointments. Interactive booking features allow your online clients to explore the availability and even test your appointment feature on their own time. There are several ways to represent a live calendar, and your brand may help define your website’s best style and interactive features.
EventON - WordPress Virtual Event Calendar Plugin
EventON Event Calendar for WordPress is a beautifully crafted event calendar that presents events in a minimal clutter-free design. We take pride in designing EventON to stand up to the latest design trends in the industry.
EventON comes packed with 200+ useful features such as highly customizable repeating events, multiple event images, unlimited event creation, various calendar layout designs, event locations and organizers, and advanced features like multi-data types and language corresponding events and etc.
Key Features
- Supports single and multiple-day events
- Create all-day events
- Exclude certain events from the calendar
- Set location by latitude and longitude
- Create events without end day or time
- Duplicate events in wp-admin
- Set event location image
- Save locations and re-use them for events
Conclusion
Above are some of the types of plugins with their various examples that we believe play a massive role in the User Interface and User Experience (UI and UX) of any website. You may want to choose the plugin to use based on the essence that it satisfies your site's needs.
