Slider Me Not
Slider Definition
Content sliders, also called carousels, sliders, image rotators, featured content modules etc. began to explode in usage on websites around the same time that the JavaScript framework jQuery surged in popularity (around 2008) though the concept had been around a lot longer. They probably emerged for a number of reasons but the liberal use of Flash in web page headers, irrational belief that the “page fold” was actually an issue, and the popular cover-flow design pattern that was first seen in iTunes 7 are all likely big contributors.
With the simplification of JavaScript animation thanks in large part to jQuery, it was easier than ever to rotate elements like a side show. This was very “Web 2.0” and allowed a designer to pack a lot more content into a single space on a web page. Free from the constraints of Flash, sliders could contain any sort of HTML including rich text, images, videos, and forms.
Nowadays, the content slider is so pervasive that it can be found on just about any kind of website yet despite the ubiquity of the slider, how effective are they and are they even a good idea in the first place?
Research
When we take a look at what the web design industry has to say, we see a number valid points raised along with some relevant data to provide objectivity.
Erik Runyon published data from a study he did in 2013 on the University of Notre Dame website. Looking at 3.7 million visits to the ND home page, only about 1% clicked on a feature article in the carousel and of that 1% nine out of ten clicked on the item in the first position (there were 5 slider items).
A study on the University of York around the same time period saw similar results in carousel item engagement with a big drop off after the second item.
Looking at the analytics of a couple websites we manage we continued to see similar patterns. For one client in particular we observed the following:
From February 18 2015 through March 18th 2015, the home page receive almost 12,000 clicks.
The slider on this page had 4 items
The first item in the sliders received 1% of all the clicks during this time (around 120)
Sliders items two, three, and four received 0.3% (40 clicks), 0.5% (60 clicks), and 0.5% (60 click) respectively
Conclusion
As a driver of engagement and conversion, content sliders are simply just not very effective.
Takeaways
So are we to conclude that content sliders are bad and should never be used? Of course not. To help us understand what drives their usage and hurts their effectiveness we must consider why. It is hard for most individuals to quickly prioritize a list of items of various importance and even harder for teams of people to do so. Items that may be important often vary in importance depending on who the visitor is, whether they are new or returning, the season or circumstance of the organization and a variety of other reasons. Sliders allow us to avoid making these choices about prioritization and importance by tucking things into what seems like an innocuous, tidy package.
The Pitfalls
Banner Blindness
The pervasiveness of sliders and the transient nature of content in them invoke the same response in people that display ads do. The irony being that while some of the most important things are placed in a slider, this tendency makes them less likely to be noticed by the visitors for which they are targeted.
Poor Usability
The Nielsen Norman group conducted a study that showed that auto-rotating or transitioning sliders killed conversion, stymied usability, and caused information retention to plummet. Further, rotating navigation is often much poorer on mobile.
The Paradox of Choice
It might seem counter intuitive but the more choices you give a user the less likely they are to make a choice at all. This is known as the paradox of choice and has been documented with some regularity in user testing and focus groups. The data for sliders also supports this as evidenced by the linear drop off of clicks beyond the first element in most sliders.
The Lost Continent Content
Most carousels do a very poor job of showing what is next or what is previous to the current item. This leads to “pogo-sticking,” inaction, and a higher bounce rate.
Page Weight
A slider or carousel is deceptive in that it’s footprint is relatively small, and yet every item it has adds an incremental tax to the load time. With page speed being such an important element to everything from usability, customer satisfaction, conversion, SEO, and mobile, the impact a slider has on performance is extremely important.
So before you decide to use a slider make sure that:
You really need it (and if so, do you really need it on the home page)
You have a small number of items in your carousel (2 to 3 at the most)
You keep the slider items simple – white space improves reading comprehension and conversion
You don’t auto rotate (or at least give ample time, >15 seconds, between rotations)
You include a way to preview or provide hints to next and previous items
You optimize slider content to load fast with optimized images and concise messaging and by lazy loading items after the first element if possible
On a lighter note, I enjoyed this website’s commentary on the subject as well as Brad Frost’s take:
INT. MEETING ROOM
“I’m very important! I need to be on the homepage!”
“I’m also very important! I need to be on the homepage too!”
“I’m very very important, I need to be on the homepage three!”
“Let’s make a carousel! Everybody wins!”
THE GROUP HIGH FIVES AND CELEBRATES OVER A BLOOMIN’ ONION AT OUTBACK STEAKHOUSE.
END SCENE
