April 6th, 2009
We have many clients who ask us to build music into their websites, usually something on the home page that they find uplifting or think their visitors may find appealing. We always advise our clients to think more than twice about doing this. Why? Not because we don’t like music, but for some very good customer-centric reasons:
- Load time: many people still use older machines and browsers to go online. Playing music will decrease your website’s overall performance, especially when someone is on an older or slower machine. Result: visitors won’t want to come back, if they’ve stuck around long enough for the pages to load in the first place.
- Personal Taste: not everyone likes the same kind of music (no matter how much we love it!) or even likes music at all. Result: visitors will be turned off and leave before they’ve even begun exploring what your site has to offer.
- Intrusiveness: many people nowadays multi-task when they’re using their computers. They may be working on a Word document, editing a photo, listening to a CD or an online radio station, and web surfing all at the same time. We all know how annoying it can be when we’re listening to our music at home and our neighbor decides to treat us to their favorite tunes while working outside or in their garage. Result: Visitors will be annoyed to have the music they’re already listening to interrupted by yours and will leave your site ASAP.
- Browser issues: not all browsers support playing music equally. Your music may not play or may crash your visitor’s browser. Result: no more visits to your website!
- Unprofessional: how many of your favorite websites or your competitor’s websites play music (if they’re not a music website)? ‘Nough said!
If you are dead set on having music on your website, we’d suggest an “opt-in” approach: have a link your visitor can click to listen to the music by choice. Then check your website statistics periodically and evaluate how popular the feature is for your particular visitors.
Filed under Tools & Tips, Web Design, Website Health & Accessibility | Comment (0)
