Back in the early days of website design, people were very quick to include sound on their websites. Whether they had page background music, or just associated beeps, which were produced when a visitor hovers over links.
Now it is fair to say, that we’ve seen a major decrease in the use of sounds effects on websites over the last several years, and I feel it will be interesting to think where this could be heading for sounds and website design.
With bandwidth on the increase, there is evermore opportunity to use audio on websites, but recent patterns would show more for music and accompanying video, than any thing else.
Reasons for using sound in your design
There are many legitimate reasons for wanting to use sound on your website. These may include…
- Attract Attention – Sound will capture the attention of a user more than images or text alone.
- Audio confirmation in design – The human senses respond to audio in website design as confirmation of an action. When using a cash machine, hearing a beep every time you press a number helps you brain to process that a button has been pressed and has worked.
- Creating an Atmosphere – Just in the way that in a actual shop you would hear background music aimed at making the shopper feel more at ease and enhance the overall shopping experience on.
Reasons for not using sound on your website
It is also fair to say that there are many reasons why users would not want to hear sound on the websites that they are visiting.
- Annoying – little beeps and swooshes, can soon become very tiresome to a user, and if there is no clear way to turn the sound off, could result in the user leaving the site all together.
- Listening to their own Sound – Many people peruse a website looking for particular products backed by the music of their own choice. If a user is enjoying listening to an Elton John Greatest Hits Collection, and suddenly a website starts playing it’s own music, then the resulting hybrid of annoyance will leave the user scrambling for their knob…de volume.
Sound in website design?
In order to best predict the evolutionary patterns of technologies on the web, it is first worth considering the path over the past decade. If all were to be considered, I would say that we are coming to the end of annoying beeps, as sound, which is more centrally associated with video or music.
On a final note, the evolution and integration of videos and product styles seem to matching that of traditional methods such as television. Does this mean, that if sound were to do the same, we could be expecting a rise of catchy radio-like jingles? I think not!
