10 Reasons Websites Should Not Play Music
I do a lot of surfing, looking for design inspiration, coding tips, or simply something to amuse me. I often start a surfing session using StumbleUpon or Wikipedia and then simply see where my interest leads me.
Sometimes, even in 2009, it leads me to a website that starts playing music or talking at me as soon as its first page loads. It seems that some website creators really don’t think through what they are doing and who they are doing it for.
Are you guilty? Step into my usability courtroom and allow me to present the case for the prosecution…
1. Simply The Best
Look at the most commercially successful websites. Does Amazon play music automatically? Does Facebook? Does Ebay? Does Google? What about Yahoo, or IMDB? The answer in all cases is no. Why? Because they’ve done their research (they can afford to, after all). And their research told them it was a bad idea. Isn’t it great that you can benefit from this research without paying for it?
2. No Accounting For Taste
There is no music that all of your visitors will like. Not everyone likes Mozart, not everyone likes Metallica, and relatively few people like elevator ambient background music. For every visitor that comes to your site and thinks “cool” there will be at least one who will think “ick!” and never return.
3. Mixing It Up
A visitor might be listening to a quiet classical CD using their PC with headphones. They click to your site, which then adds a hip-hop beat to the mix at four times the volume, making their ears bleed. Hitting the back button and remembering your site name takes less time than finding your wierd-looking “stop” or “pause” button. You’ll never see that visitor again.
4. Share And Enjoy
4. Someone may be using their laptop in an open-plan office without headphones, and may have forgotten to mute the sound. Your site may be relevant to their needs, but if the music that suddenly blares out embarrasses them or annoys their colleagues (or worse still their boss), you can bet they won’t visit again or recommend you to others.
5. You’re Nicked
Are you sure you have the right to add that particular track to your website? If you didn’t compose and record it yourself, you’d better be very sure, or start putting a lot of money aside ready for when the Warner Brothers or Sony legal team comes knocking at your door.
6. We Can Multitask
With tabbed browsing, it’s often convenient to middle-click several search engine results and then flick through them. If your site is one of those results, and it starts playing music, and your visitor doesn’t want that music, they have to flick through the tabs until they work out which site is offending them. You can bet they’ll close that tab. And imagine what happens if two of the websites they clicked start playing music – a horrible cacophany that will have your visitor reaching for their browser’s “Exit” button.
7. Of Lipstick and Pigs
You may think it really gives your website that finishing touch of “pizazz”. OK, let’s turn that statement around. You’re seriously saying that your website isn’t interesting enough unless you add automatically-playing music to it? Man, you’re in trouble. Or your designer is.
8. The Science Bit
Assuming you’re still ignoring every point made so far, and you actually get a visitor who stays on your front page while music plays at them, and amazingly enough clicks a further link in your site, how do you keep the audio track from stopping and starting again? That’s right, you’ll be using a frame or iframe. Or your site is entirely Flash-based. Or both. Well done, you’ve just broken the back button and hindered the ability of search engines to find and index your site properly.
9. Money, Money, Money
Any decent length music loop, let alone a full track, will probably use up a higher proportion of your bandwidth than the rest of your site put together. Are you ready for those extra bills?
And finally…
10. Reason For Living
“But it’s a band website!” So, you know how to use a “play” button, don’t you? So do your visitors.
End rant.
Am I some kind of music-hater? No. I’m a musician and I adore music. I often have Winamp running with headphones when I’m working. See point 3 above…
Really love this post
I remember working in London 10 years ago and clients insisting that a Flash powered music player was a must. 10 years on and I find the same now happening in Malta.
Must say it makes me chuckle
Totally agree with your post.Automatically played music on websites is just horrible.Same with voice statements.It gives the site a less professional feel.As you stated, you are listening to some music from your local computer and suddenly another sound hits your ears.I love music as well, but i like to select what i am listening to.
Good post
No you’re not a music-hater. And believe me nobody likes websites with auto play music, unless they’ve just crawled from under a rock and sees the internet for the first time. That might keep them interested in the website for 5 minutes.
I also am listening to music while browsing and sometimes websites will have advertisements that auto play, you know those annoying clips. And they are so loud they scare the poo out of you.
But I thought no auto play music was common sense these days, right? Who else does that, except 13yo that want to impress?
It is common sense – but common sense seems to be less common than you would hope. Automatic music has thankfully almost totally vanished from British designers’ portfolios, however in Malta (my current base) it’s still seen (heard?) far too often, usually on Flash websites built by professional agencies that should know better.
Great post! Never thought about it this way. Honestly, the first thing I do when I enter websites with music is to look for the “turn off” button. It is annoying, they should get rid of it. seriously…
Oh, I HATE websites with audio, with very few exceptions. I also hate ads with audio for many of the same reasons. Even if it draws my attention to the ad, it makes me immediately dislike the ad, so it doesn’t help them get a customer.
Point number 6 was the big one for me. I have lots of tabs open all the time, and when one of them starts playing audio, I have to spend forever trying to figure out which one it is so I can shut it up.
Good points, I just hope a few webmasters listen!
I join opinion of the author music on a site should be only on demand.
So true, so true. Somebody should create an organization against those websites, so we can get them off the interwebs
I agree with your opinions music may take place in distracting peoples attention to other things rather than the website itself
I’m surprised people still need telling this.
Of course it’s a bad idea. If people want music, they will put their own music on!
I think that using the music on your website can be appropriate in some cases. For example if you are a wedding photographer having some romantic music on your portfolio website will create the certain mood for those interested in your services ( and will make them dream of their wedding) and that will be certainly a pleasant experience. I don’t like music on say business websites but I love when some calm melody plays on photography website and some time I even turn my music off to listen to that melody.
There were a lot convincing tips in most of the 10 reasons. I truly believe that the websites today should be more moral with being very restricted to diverting the peoples mind. Well, this is one of the best posts that I have come across till now.
Reading your article I remembered that a few years ago there was even a PayPerPlay concept where webmaster would get money per audio ad played when the user entered the site. I dont think that ever took off.
I keep my speakers off. I hate it when i go to some goofy webpage and have my speakers up loud from rocking out and then a midi tune startles the crap out of me.
Really interesting article.
My business partner is in the process of trying to convince me to put music on the home page of our website – don’t like the idea, and was going to have to sit down and rationalize my opinion – now I don’t have to, as this article covers all my concerns and more. Thanks.
I always forget to turn down my speakers and “accidentally” visit websites/mspace pages with music. The whole office thinks I listen to death metal now.
Autoplay music on websites are pretty much annoying and distracting. I wonder what other nasty words I can describe it but it’s useless. Instead of making the website good, it backfires against them.
I’ve designed a few band websites over the years, they always want their music to autoplay. I tell them no. I’ve had many other clietns request some cheezy sound when they load the site. Always tell them no. There’s no way I’ll subject myself to listening to a loud thunderbolt every time I hit F5 as I develop there site, just as there’s no way I’d subject their visitors to that.
Very good article. It is sometimes hard to explain to a customer that is not good to add music on his site. Thanks for this.
I tottaly agree with you. Music on a website is intrusive and sometimes just makes me to close the browser. I really enjoyed your blog. Keep Going!
Spot on. Music on web sites can be the worst. Especially when sites haven’t figured out how to keep the music from restarting every time you venture onto a new page. Frustrating.
If I come across a site with music I back up straight away. Its as bad as advertising pop ups that take over the whole page, if I wanted to listen to music I’d select a track from the 1000 + I have on my hard drive, if I search for somthing on the internet, thats all I want, just the info not that ‘extra somthing’ they think I should have.
Oh well said! I was looking for “documentary evidence” to confirm that I am not alone in my opinion.
I think websites that have auto play music are the worst things ever! I mean the worst are these sites that have annoying casino music – definitely does not make you feel lucky!
I hate it when websites play auto music. I usually leave my earphones plugged into the side of my laptop and only have them in my ears when I need to, so I don’t usually NOTICE the music on a webpage, however it makes the webpage load slowly.
Thanks for the rant. #11. It’s completely annoying when your visitors open your site in a new tab and music starts blaring without warning!!!! Ultimately, they will just hastily close your webpage and move on.
[...] Autoplay music on commercial websites is rarely a good idea – Please see this article for some of the reasons why. (Also currently if you play the video you have embedded it plays music as well which will overlap with the BG music.)http://www.zigpress.com/2009/10/30/10-reasons-websites-should-not-play-music/ [...]
[...] websites is rarely a good idea – Please see this article for some of the reasons why. ( http://www.zigpress.com/2009/10/30/10-reasons-websites-should-not-play-music/ [...]