Why is this post not full of data and heatmaps to support this case? All I see is a "conversion" expert trumpeting anecdotal and gut opinions, without any supporting data one way or the other.<p>I'm not saying he is necessarily wrong, but this is an extremely broad generalization that is not backed up with any evidence in the post itself.
"Don't use Automatic Image Sliders or Carousels" is good advice, but it misses the heart of the problem: don't design user interface without a purpose. If "what is the purpose and goal of this website?" is the first question you ask when designing a site, you should never end up with "carousel banners!"<p>The image slider is a classic example of user interface being built without being designed around purpose and function. This is a shitty design paradigm that has somehow lasted for years and years, but there will always be trendy things to do that are extended past their original purpose.<p>Start with purpose, then design a user interface that meshes with those goals, and good things will happen.
I know it's a different use case but the OP is talking about using a strong static message and having faith in the user to scroll below the fold...all the while as his website uses an animated popup box to fill the bottom right area of my screen...<i>twice</i> (on the iPad). So apparently, there's a case to be made for some kind of obtrusive moving elements...<p>As someone already said, I'm inclined to agree with the OP. But there needs to be hard data here. People often won't know what to do (I.e. scroll down below the fold) until you flash some hint in front of their eyes. Newspapers used to do usability studies on their print product quite often...and they always found that a huge number of people, no matter how compelling the story, did not turn the page. I can see a case being made that even if there is one big thing you want to get across to the user (such as a bug sale), there are often competing concurrent interests that would be missed below the fold. At least a carousel gives that item/module a fighting chance to be just noticed.
If you use these things, you are a bad person and should feel bad.<p>Korg is a perfect example of why you shouldn't use them. All of Korg's product images have been on rotating sliders for years. When I want to take a closer look at how the controls or I/O ports are laid out, the last place I look is korg.com because there is no way to make the damn things stay still.<p>Good design solves problems. It does not draw attention to itself.
The company where I used to work a couple of years ago had a <i>big</i> front page photo slider that changed with quite a bit of vigor and it drove me mad because it would take all focus away from other elements on the page. On a large, wide-screen monitor it almost pulled you off your chair as your brain followed it.<p>Many other staff members (and customers) also hated the slider and I pointed this out to the relevant parties (Marketing and the MD), but they loved it and so it stayed.<p>PS: I've just checked and the slider has gone - but the article headers are now in Comic Sans. Dear god!
They forgot one other important reason, most of the time they thrash the CPU. I have opened sites in a tab, with the intention of coming back later to explore more, only to later hear my mac book fan running loudly. I immediately shut down the tab.
While I don't have any metrics that correlate with the claims made in this article, I agree with them. I find that at the very least, the user is missing content.<p>I'm a fan of this homepage: <a href="http://www.curse.com/" rel="nofollow">http://www.curse.com/</a>. It's got slider-like elements, but the content is displayed in a very organized, not distracting fasion. Designing above the fold is nearly irrelevant at this point. If done correctly, the user can easily be encouraged to scroll.
My situation is not a common one, but image sliders / carousels really hurt Remote Desktop / VNC / X performance, as well.<p>There have been a number of web sites I could not interact with because the carousel swamped my bandwidth with the constantly changing images, when I was accessing a machine remotely.<p>When that happens, I have no choice but to close the tab and not navigate back to the web site...or visit it later, non-remotely, if I bother going back at all.
I think the slider has it's place but that place isn't everywhere. When you want to bring exclusives, features, or trending news to the attention of the reader above the most recent stories, it's hard to beat a slider. The problem is, it's really only effective if the image is certain to grab attention to it's headline. A celebrity, a disaster, a 'hero shot'...these things always grab my attention on a slider. A Google logo, a physical product (unless it's like a 'WTF is that?') a picture of some random startup founder I'd only recognize by name, these things fail in the slider.
I guess years of flash animated banner ads have made users blind to <i>any</i> animated content on a web page.<p>On a side note, if you intend to implement a navigation for your slider (like dots or page numbers), I'd highly recommend triggering it on hover and not on click. It's really painful as a user to have to point precisely at a small 8*8 pixel area, stop moving, and then click, in order to change the slide. Hover triggering is more indulgent in terms of precision (like on Chrome's web store). Of course, making the area bigger is also recommended.
The problem I have with Image Sliders is that it is often unclear how you "backtrack" to an offer or ad you like. Then you end up clicking on something you don't want. It's an annoying experience.
I think for some usage they are really good and I haven't been annoyed with them except on sites that have more generic UX problems. Also I do look at them when I visit a site because there is often a lot of information to gather when first reading some pages.
My co founders and I had a discussion about this very issue. We all wanted the functionality initially but realized that we hated sliders as users of other sites. No one I know cares to re-read the slide that was missed.
I think they work well for product carousels, when you don't want to overload the home with pictures (like in <a href="http://www.thefancypuffin.com" rel="nofollow">http://www.thefancypuffin.com</a>)