Marketing people love them, web designers adore them. But customers hate them. Worse: they ignore them: the moving sliding images, the carousels that occupy the center of so many websites. Who needs them? Not the visitors. Not the customers. They distract, they get in the way of the task of the customer. Here is why you have to get rid of them.

1. GET RID OF THOSE
SLIDERS ON THE
HOME PAGE!
Toon Lowette
Grid Online Publishing Consultancy
www.grid.be

2. CAROUSELS,
SLIDERS,
ACCORDEONS
ON THE HOME
PAGE:
THEY DON’T
WORK

3. DON’T GO
WITH THE FAD
AND THIS IS
WHY

4. WHAT DO THE • A documented case: ND.edu
METRICS University of Notre Dame, Indiana, US
SHOW?

5. THE ND.ECU • On a sample of 315.655 pages shown
CASE • 28.928 clicks or less than 1%
• Of those 84% on the 1st position, the rest had almost
no clicks

6. WHAT DO • “Fancy format” very often is not even
OBSERVATIONS looked at
TEACH US? • They look like banners, mostly
JAKOB • Lower accessibility: often gone before
NIELSEN: the click
• Not enough time for the not very
literate
• Not enough time for the non-native
speakers
and
• They irritate: visitors don’t like things
to move out of their control

7. WHAT DO • Almost all of the testing I’ve managed
EXPERTS SAY? has proven content delivered via
carousels to be missed by users. Few
interact with them and many comment
that they look like adverts and so
we’ve witnessed the banner blindness
concept in full effect. Adam Fellows
• In test after test, the first thing the
visitor does when coming to a page
with a large carousel is scroll right past
it and start looking for triggers that
will move them forward with their
task. Craig Kistler
• Because it moves, users automatically
assume that it might be an
advertisement , which makes them
more likely to ignore it. Jakob Nielsen

8. Usability Test • What did the test team observe with
question by participants who couldn’t complete
Jakob Nielsen: the task?
“Does Siemens
have any
special deals
on washing
machines?”

9. Carousel is being ignored:
“No time to read”
Promobox:
• Not been noticed
• Right column, less visible
• Irrelevant content:
“Rewarding.Life.Style”

10. WHAT DO THE Jakob Nielsen
CRITICS SAY? • Visitors have become banner-blind
• Carousels, accordeons, sliders are
conversion killers
Gerry McGovern
• When it looks like an ad, it’s being
ignored
• Marketing often gets in the way of the
customer’s task.
Toon Lowette:
• The Internet is essentially a text media:
words guide us on the path to the
completion of our task

11. SO, WHY DO • Web designers think they’re hot
THEY EXIST? • Marketing people adore them
• Very often: because of a lack of
agreement on the home page
priorities
• Or a lack of convincing power to get
the right priorities
Does this type of meeting look familiar?

12. A carousel! Not much room,
and we’re not yet
there…
I’ve got an idea
And
me
Me too My department
is the most
important. I
HAVE to be on
the home page.
A happy ending. But “design by committee never fails to fail”.

13. Carousels are effective at being able to
tell people in Marketing/Senior
Management that their latest idea is now
on the Home Page. Lee Duddell

14. • If we can’t prioritize, who shall be the
victim? Why not the client?
• A carousel typically is a patch for the
weakness of a self-centered organization
that doesn’t take the customer and his
tasks seriously.
• The carousel is the set of crutches that
helps Ignorance to stand up.
• Ignorance thinks to walk straight and swift,
but everybody sees the crutches.
• They look cool, the crutches. But they are
crutches.

15. HAVE A LOOK

16. Small numbers change colour when the
next image appears. And you can pause
the carousel. Why would you, since the
top task on this page is ordering a railway
ticket. That task is a handful already,
without the diversion on the side. I prefer
the railway company would improve the
task. I would save time at least two times
a week. And many others would too.

17. Coolblue is an extremely efficient web shop,
taking care of customer service at all levels.
Was this carousel a concession someone had
to make to someone else in the company?
Numbers indicate where you are, and yes,
you can pause the show as well.

18. In this example, navigation and tasks are
pushed away with content-free content (as
Jakob Nielsen would say). Small images
indicate the position in the carousel. The image
is just a part of the big picture, not relevant at
all. No pause button.

19. Here, the pictures
under the carousel are
bigger and a caption
gives a clue of what
follows. Good. The
navigation with the
top tasks is fine.
However, this home
page could make them
more prominent.

20. “All about your car
always just a click away”
Why use a carousel for
that? How do they think I
got here, if not with a
mouse click? Stop this
marketing blah-blah. Get
me to where I want! And
oh, the other positions in
the carousel were just as
irrelevant. But beautiful.

21. • Offline marketing is about getting
attention. Online marketing is about
giving attention. says Gerry McGovern.
• In the previous slide, the site keeps on
getting attention, keeps on shouting.
Stop shouting, I’m already on your
website. Get me what I want.

22. Click to move on or
back in this carousel.
Good. But why would I?
In this case, there was only
one position in the slider.
Clicking repeated the image.
Pity. I badly wanted to see
the cat version.

23. The city of Mechelen
has won several
awards already, and
earned them. The site
is efficient and task-
driven. And yet, a
carousel. However,
with text support
under the image.
The dots
indicate: two
positions in the
carousel.
Limited, nice.
But why then
not two still
images?
Allowing the
curious eye to
scan both?

24. Here, the carousel only shows
mood images. No links, no text,
no tasks. One third of the screen
surface. This is “getting-
attention-marketing”, but it only
diverts attention. For two
reasons: images without
content, and irritating because
they move.

25. Here, the image in the
carousel changes, the link
texts stay put. But not
elegantly: the colour change
makes the text hard to read.
A couple of links are copies
of the titles further on. Why?

26. IF YOU • Show the next position only when the
REALLY WANT visitors clicks to get it
TO HAVE ONE
• Give useful task orientated content
(OR HAVE TO
HAVE)
• Show with words what is to be
expected in the next positions
• Randomize the first position, giving all
positions equal showings
• If temporarily there is only one
position, don’t make it a carousel

27. CLEAR What they do need:
HOME PAGES
DON’T NEED • Simple navigation to the tasks
CAROUSELS
• Clear lay-out
• Attention to the customer
• One understandable promotion offer
• No diversion
• No moving images

28. TASK • Identify your visitors’ top tasks and tiny
MANAGEMENT tasks
• Measure how customer-centric the site is
WITH • Measure how efficiently clients can
TOON complete tasks
LOWETTE • Design for successful navigation
• Test, measure, tweak, test, measure, etc.
AND GERRY
MCGOVERN
These are the challenges that Customer
Carewords helps you with.
Manage the task. Not the content, not the
website. The task.
Facts instead of opinions.
Contact Toon Lowette
toon@grid.be - 0032 474 285 849