Striker Enforcement LLC

Ruiner

I Seriously Need This Helmet

scm player and flash mp3: both have volume settings. put them on 25% so that they are quiet for most. those who wish to listen can simply turn their volume up.

The problem with autoplay has nothing to do with social acceptability or lack thereof. It’s an issue of accessibility and not being a jerk. I say this as someone who works professionally in the web development field.

Autoplay is a thing that should never ever happen.

At its best, autoplay is a horribly intrusive thing. People don’t go to your blogs to listen to whatever music you’ve set to autoplay. They go there to read your content. Most people already have music, TV, real life, etc., going on and they don’t need your autoplay music suddenly and unexpectedly blaring out of their speakers. It’s more than annoying. It’s disruptive.

“Well then people don’t have to come to my blog,” someone might say. The problem with that is people have no way of knowing if your blog has autoplay before going there. People generally go to websites expecting no sudden noise. So when they click through and hear your autoplay suddenly, it’s distracting. Thank goodness for Chrome giving us the little speaker icon because before that it was worse. You had to shuffle through all kinds of tabs to figure out which one was making the noise.

On top of it all, autoplay controls on Tumblr blogs is getting more and more difficult to track down. When you have autoplay and someone can’t find the controls, then you’re being a real jerk. You’re hurting yourself and your visitors and it basically makes you the rudest of the rude.

Beyond just the rudeness of it all, autoplay violates all web accessibility guidelines. The web operates best when users don’t get any unwanted surprises from their clicks. Autoplay music is an unwanted surprise. Always. There are no ifs ands or buts. There is no “turning it down to make it socially acceptable.” It’s wrong.

Autoplay can trigger panic attacks. Autoplay can cause people to hurt themselves if they forget their speakers are turned up and they are startled by the sudden loud noise. Autoplay wreaks havoc on visually impaired people who rely on screen readers to navigate the web. These screen readers “say” the words on the screen out loud, but if your autoplay’s running, they may not be able to hear the screen reader.