Imagine yourself clicking on a web site link and out of nowhere, loud noise blasts out from your speaker. You had just put your baby to sleep but that auto-playing media woke her up!
How about visualizing another situation where you are at work with your speakers on. After clicking a website, a video ad about earning while you sleep plays, causing you to scramble for the speaker’s off button while your startled co-workers look at you with annoyance.
At some point, these auto-playing video ads and music might have annoyed, startled, embarrassed or irritated you in the past. Sad to say, some blog owners still use auto-playing media on their blogs to create some sort ambience or to generate interests for their ads.
Big Turn-off
As a website or blog owner, you should be aware that auto-playing media should be a no-no for your blogs. It is one of the surefire ways to turn off your readers. Don’t assume that just because you like a certain genre of music, your readers will do, too. (In the first place, they are called readers because they expect to read a web site, not listen to it.) Even if they share your love for music, they might be in a situation where an unexpected sound is not welcome at all.
Effect on Page Load and Size
Your website is brought to your users by sending all those files (examples are images, html files, videos and scripts) to their browsers through the internet. Since music and video files are usually bigger in file size, they increase your web page size and cause slower page loads. In addition, your readers who pay by the number of bytes that they download will end up paying more.
Final Note
Videos and music can be included in your website – it’s your prerogative. However, you should leave your readers the choice whether to play the video or the music and should not auto-play them.
