Most Asked Question I Get About Websites
Whoa – what? I have gotten a few surprises with questions at some of the presentations I have made the last few months with webinars and two conferences I just did. This particular question I get every time.
My Client Wants Autoplay for Their Video (or Audio), is That Okay?
That one took me by surprise, but I live and breath web design so maybe I shouldn’t assume we all know this. What people were looking for was trying to talk their clients out of it. They knew it wasn’t a good idea, they needed the why.
I am going to quote my good friend Deborah Edwards-Onoro who is a usability expert – "it is considered bad usability for websites and just plain rude!" This is actually one of those web design 101 things you learn in the early stages in classes, auto-play is a major no-no. Why?
Okay, so a web visitor is sitting in their office cubicle and see an interesting link for a web page. They click and out comes LOUD MUSIC or SOMEONE TALKING. Embarrassed, they hurriedly look for a way to stop it and barring that, will turn down their volume. Not only is the site visitor embarrassed, but annoyed with the website for being the cause of that embarrassment. Yikes, you just alienated your site visitor. It is also a sign of an older site, this has trended out big time along with flash videos.
But My Favorite Business Coach Does It!
Yet it seems to be a hard sales tactic. Why do some marketers get away with it? Well they want to make sure you hear that sales pitch. Also – their market is probably less likely to be sitting in a cubicle. This is especially true of people wanting coaching and entrepreneurs. But you still are taking control away from the user so tread with care because you risk alienating your site visitors. It’s a good bet these marketers are overcoming this annoyance with charm and overcoming a barrier but it will turn some people away.
So bottom line, it’s rude but it is still about the audience, if your audience is okay with it and you have enough numbers you don’t mind alienating some of them, it’s probably okay. But for most websites – it is not a good idea. It trended out for a very good reason, people find the lack of control and embarrassment irritating.
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Hi Nancy,
Glad to read your post about autoplaying video, and thank you for the shoutout.
A good rule to follow: don’t take away control from web visitors.
I do a lot of website usability testing; autoplay of audio and video is one of the top complaints from web visitors.
Thanks for commenting Deborah and letting me quote you!
My biggest gripe about auto-play videos are the flash sales pitches that cannot be paused and neither tells you up front how long the pitch will last. My time is valuable and I should at least have the right to know how much time they need to get their presentation across. It is also insulting to the user’s intelligence to not allow them to get to the meat of the pitch in a timely fashion. Too often the pitches spend too much time spoon feeding the potential customer with useless information prior to getting to the point. I have yet to be convinced as a consumer to listen to the entirety of such sales tactics. I suspect most web consumers share my feelings on this issue.
Agree with you there James. I tend to click off way before a video ends – that is a really good point.
I think many of us are reading skimmers – we want a nice bulleted list with points that give us the information quickly. Personally I would have to really want to information to watch a video but for how-tos, sometimes it can be very helpful. Just give us the control right?
Absolutely agree with what you said about autoplaying videos. Just clicked away from three news websites that autoplayed videos (ABC news and NY news or something like that, plus one other and obviously I’m not going to open it again to find out), despite the fact that judging from the Google search results they apparently had interesting articles that I wanted to read. Shame that I couldn’t read them. Fortunately a forum had what appeared to be the same story.
So in short, even if your site has something REALLY interesting, people will close your website the instant they hear ANY audio (unless it’s a video/music website where it’s expected).
Couldn’t agree more. I find it completely objectionable, have been in many situations where suddenly a loud video starts playing, drawing negative attention. Unfortunately, in Australia, the two major news groups (News and Fairfax) have decided it is ok. Really pisses me off to be frank, wish they would have more courtesy.