No More Websites With Sound, Please
Note to web designers: Nobody wants to show up at your website and hear music. Nobody. Some of us are already listening to music, and those that aren’t usually aren’t for a reason.
I do not go to a hotel’s website, hear spa music, and feel relaxed and welcomed. My reaction is to think “what tab is playing that fucking music,” and then hunt yours down and find the mute button as quickly as possible. And if there is no mute button? Your site gets closed.
You probably think it brings a touch of your product’s ambience to the site, but you’re wrong, it just makes your product annoying. It’s show-off tech from the late 90s and it makes you seem dated and old-fashioned. We’re now beyond “what can we do” and we’ve entered “what should we do.” Exercise some restraint, people. Animated GIFs, splash pages and the like have all managed to quietly shuffle off the web, but for some reason the “website avec soundtrack” remains. An automatic soundtrack to your site is to most of us like that blue neon light under your car: tacky.
Flash games: this means you too. You MUST include a mute button on every last frame of your game, including the opening graphics that have that sound effect you just couldn’t resist. It’s not a movie, we don’t need sound with your logo. I don’t mind the logo being there… but I don’t need to switch tabs while your game loads and then suddenly hear blaring trumpets or two swords repeatedly clanging together.
That said, if you can get past the music, this site that does custom hidden doors in your home has some cool stuff. The mute button is in the top right.