Avoid Auto-Launching Media

If you are launching a web design project, here is something to keep in mind before you site goes live. Make sure you are designing a website for your audience, rather than for yourself. While your tastes and preferences will likely inform your design, you need to make sure your site appeal to more than an audience of one. A quick way to distance yourself from your audience is to include automatically launching video, music and sound effects in your site design. While popular in the early years of web design, the days of auto-launching media are dead, and here is why.

Videos or music that plays automatically when you open the page can be annoying to your viewers. It is not something that is expected when you land on the site and can come as quite a shock (especially if the viewer has their speakers turned up all the way). The moments your user wastes trying to find the pause button for your media (or worse, not finding it at all) are precious seconds that they are not spending looking at your content and learning about your business or organization. You have already alienated your audience and likely there next step will be to move on to a less bothersome page.

Your instinct to want to include interactive media in your site is a good one. Video and audio clips may be a great way to spice up your content and package information in a fun and accessible way. But you must let your viewer chose to view your media. Media that automatically launches deprives your audience of that choice and because of this, it will probably be ignored.