While recently reading an article on Digg, I noticed one of the most popular comments on the article was one that actually “Buried” the article because of the auto-loading slideshow. Users didn’t even care about the content because the interface of the slideshow was frustrating and apparently many users agreed. The particular article was from Forbes.com, and this is an example of one of their slideshows:
Why are these slideshows frustrating to users?
Making Users Responders Instead of Initiators
One of Ben Shneiderman’s famous Eight Golden Rules of Interface Design is #7:
Support internal locus of control. This means giving users the sense of control over what they are using or doing.
To use a car for example, let’s say a driver slams on the brakes to avoid an accident and the car stops. This gives the user the impression that they are in control of stopping the car, even though it was really the hundreds of microprocessors and sensors controlling the anti-lock system and automatically pumping the brakes a hundred times a second to stop the car without skidding.
Now imagine a new technology that senses accidents and modulates the brakes by calculating and monitoring the chances of an accident. In the same situation as before, the driver slams on the brakes but the car slows down at the same pace no matter how hard the brakes are being stepped on. The microprocessors and sensors do not detect an accident occuring, so the car does not respond to the user stepping on the brake pedal harder. The user has to disable the automatic crash sensing system in order to have the car stop. This implementation of technology would make the user feel out of control of the car and think that the car is not safe (even though in reality it is safer).
The Forbes.com slideshow is similar to the second situation in that by default it takes the user out of control of the interface and expects the user to become respondants to the situation, rather than being the initiator of the action. If a user wants a slideshow to play, they should have to click play first, or navigate normally through the slideshow by clicking next. By automatically loading the slideshow and playing the slides, it takes the user out of control of the page, and also brakes the expectations of users. Currently if a user is in the middle of reading a paragraph, it is likely that the next slide will load and result in a frustration user-experience.
Obscure Icons
There are controls for the user to stop the slideshow or control the speed in which the slideshow changes. The problem is these controls are obscure and not conventional:
If you take a look at the icons, its a left-pointing arrow, a square, a right-pointing arrow, and a slider for “speed”. The left-pointing arrow goes “back” one slide, the square “pauses” the slideshow, and the right-pointing arrow goes “forward” one slide. The confusing part about these icons is that the square stops the slideshow, but when you click on the icon, it still shows a square. When that happens, it’s possible for users to be confused and assume the right-pointing arrow stands for “play” instead of “forward”. The square acutally now stands for “play”, and relies on the chance that the user remembers if the slideshow is currently playing or stopped. This can easily be fixed by a better choice of icons and icons that respond to show the current status of the slideshow (playing/paused). The slider for the slideshow does not indicate how fast or slow the slideshow will play, so having the arbitrary slider does not help users at all.
Auto-Loading New Slideshows
After a slideshow is done playing, another slideshow loads automatically and this continues infinitely. I accidentally left a slideshow playing, and when I came back the next day it was playing a slideshow of something completely random, not to mention my browser was using 90% of my computer’s RAM. The content that loads subsequently is not even relevant to the content of the initial slideshow. If there is one thing that can make your users leave your site instantly, it’s providing the user irrelevant content.
Simulatenous Video Advertisements
When multiple animations appear on the page, it makes it difficult for users to focus on one area. In this example, the slideshow plays, and occasionally animated video advertisements play simultaneously alongside. This may cause cognitive overload for the user, leading them to close the browser window.
I could go on about the usability issues pertaining to the slideshows, but the bottom line is users hate them. The concept of a slideshow is not the problem, but rather the particular implementation of the slideshow which affects the overall user experience.
