Comments on: Turn the Music Off. My Campaign for a Quieter Website Experience.

By: Lonnie

Lonnie — Wed, 16 Mar 2011 15:06:41 +0000

Ron, I too agree with you about the music being an annoyance. When the sites do have music they could at least have good music. Knowing that good music means different things to different people, the wrong choice of music could turn the visitor off immediately.

By: Oren Arieli

Oren Arieli — Mon, 14 Mar 2011 17:11:06 +0000

I admit to having music on my site when I first rebranded. That lasted all of one week. Even though it was a beautiful instrumental track (IMHO), I felt that it would be a big turnoff to a potential client websurfing at work and having to scramble for a mute button (should the boss be around). My biggest pet peeve is going to sites where a corner ad starts playing (unprovoked, of course). With the various schemes of media players, there isn’t always a standardized way to mute them (short of on your keyboard). It just leaves a bad impression as well.

By: Jonathan Look, Jr.

Jonathan Look, Jr. — Thu, 10 Mar 2011 23:16:53 +0000

I couldn’t agree more. I think I have great taste in music, which I usually listen to via iTunes while I surf the web. Nothing more annoying than having a cacophony of competing sounds come through my speakers.

By: Ron Dawson

Ron Dawson — Thu, 10 Mar 2011 19:18:46 +0000

In reply to Steve Moses.

Thanks for commenting Steve. I know these girls aren’t stupid. Maybe she’s surfing with the volume down. Maybe not. But my main point is essentially better safe than sorry. And as I pointed out, if one is going to have music, having it quiet and unobtrusive is the better way. Sounds like that’s how you guys do it. That’s great. But I’ve come across way too many that DON’T do it like that. It was the whole inspiration for the blog post. I was on a site and every page started with music. Very annoying.

Also, fwiw, many of my blog readers aren’t videographers, so clients coming to their sites may not be expecting to listen to anything.

By: Steve Moses

Steve Moses — Thu, 10 Mar 2011 18:24:02 +0000

So this means, if they are watching our clips at work they don’t have the audio up when actually watching the clips? What’s the diff from music on the website to music on the clips. These girls aren’t stupid, they know to have the volume low when searching the web. Beside, I bet 90% of them do this at lunch/break time. Music on a site sets the feel, tone & branding of that company. You say it can’t help, I think it can if used tastefully. This is a small thing in the big picture, but we like set the tone of our company from the first impression…as you know you only get that chance once.;)

By: meg simone

meg simone — Wed, 09 Mar 2011 19:45:44 +0000

Oh my gosh! Thank goodness someone spoke up about this! Thank you Ron! ReTweet! ReTweet! ReTweet!

By: Philip Hinkle

Philip Hinkle — Wed, 09 Mar 2011 18:22:16 +0000

Another idea…someone once told me they liked having a video play on the start of their homepage but they dropped the levels of the audio and also created a slow fade up for the audio on the video. That way it starts quiet and slowly ramps up thus giving the office “time waster” sufficient time to grab the speakers and lower the volume. Thought that was a reasonably fair trade off.

By: Ron Dawson

Ron Dawson — Wed, 09 Mar 2011 18:20:25 +0000

In reply to Dan Rollins. The auto-play video is one I forgot to mention. Thanks Dan. Yes. That's equally annoying to me. Especially if I'm not ready for it.

By: Dan Rollins

Dan Rollins — Wed, 09 Mar 2011 18:05:32 +0000

AMEN BROTHER! I designed my wife’s photography site before she decided to make the switch to video with me… we used a template that had auto-play music… yeah, turned that option off. I don’t there was a default off setting.. I do like a little music in the background but I like to be “in control” of it. I work my corporate job during the day and it doesn’t work well to have loud music suddenly blast out from my cube! I do agree that there is a draw for a consumer to spend more time “shopping/browsing” when there is the right music playing… but I expect to hear music playing in a store.. I don’t expect music on a webpage… and there is a chance someone will just close it and move on to the next result on Google if they are greeted with music, especially if they can’t figure out how to turn it off.

You could do a similar post regarding the promo/welcome video on the home page that is on Auto-play! Another pet-peeve of mine! I am a big boy and I can press play myself 🙂 Or the the “50 REASONS WHY YOU SHOULD SUBSCRIBE TO MY NEWSLETTER” pop-up that appears suddenly right in the middle of the page with the hidden close button.

Thanks for covering this Ron!

By: Philip Hinkle

Philip Hinkle — Wed, 09 Mar 2011 17:02:38 +0000

In reply to Ron Dawson.

I’m sure you could turn them off but my guess is they just load content and find a song cause it asks for it. They don’t think to turn it off or disable. They paid for it all ….. shouldn’t they use it all. 🙂