I've lost count of how many clients have requested that music be playing in the background of their website. As a professional web developer with a few too many years of implementing ridiculous requests, I've acquired quite a knack for convincing a client that music is a bad idea. There are obvious exceptions: such as band websites or sites heavily involved in multimedia. I'm talking about content-rich sites where the user does not expect (or want) a multimedia experience.
The next time a client decides that a bit of oontz-oontz might give them a bit of an "edge," refer to this list to convince them that they're really just making their site suck.
- It's obtrusive: Having music playing in the background can interrupt whatever is currently coming through the users speakers. Many people use their computers as media stations that play music and video. Having this suddenly interrupted is the equivalent of having a newspaper that jumps off the table and wraps around your head like a facehugger and starts laying headlines in your throat. There's probably a better example to use when actually speaking to the client, but you get the idea: It's forcing something down the users throat they didn't ask for. Users expect web pages to contain useful information, not carry a tune.
- It cuts off when you click around: Unless you've got some kind of hidden frame (if you do, you've got bigger problems than music right now), the sound will cut off every time they click from page to page.
- Not all browsers and operating systems support multimedia content: There are a lot of older browsers out there on the net that might not support multimedia or will have serious issues playing it. This is a difficult point for the client to argue with because it's a technical issue. I always like to present them with the question: "If you had to choose between some users being able to hear music and some having their browser crash OR having everyone be able to view the site without any issues, which would you choose?"
- It slows things down: Having music playing will decrease the performance of the site, especially on slower machines. Not only will this make the user experience poor during their visit, it'll also make them less inclined to visit your site again for fear it'll once again transform things into molasses.
- It's tacky and unprofessional: Play to their vanity: having background music was cool in the mid-nineties when the web was first coming together. Now it's not, it's considered dated and the mark of an amateur. If you're gonna put background music in, you might as well put on a pair of hammer pants. You're a fossil, go sit in a museum and fart dust.
- There's a reason other sites don't have music: Many clients think that since the majority of the web does not play music, by having it on their site they're being exceptional and will stand out from the competition. This is wrong, the reason most sites don't have music playing is because most sites agree that it's a bad idea. Just because you've never seen a site on the web with a giant kitten for a cursor doesn't mean that you should be the first one to try.
- Not everyone may like your music: What some people consider ambient and pleasant, others may find to be annoying, elevator music.
- Ask them if they've ever surfed myspace: Ever gotten to someone's myspace page and found yourself frantically trying to find the STOP button on the music player they've embedded somewhere in the abomination they call a profile? Meanwhile your speakers are blaring some crappy emo song about crying in dark puddles. Chances are many clients have experienced this firsthand and can directly relate to your frustration. If this backfires, however, and the client thinks that since myspace is huge and successful that mimicking them is a good idea, point out that they were voted the #1 worst website of 2006 by PC World.
- It uses up bandwidth: This is hardly an issue nowadays, but if it's a high traffic site having music may run the risk of putting it over its traffic limit and costing extra money.
Most of the comments and the post = right on.
We are building a site for a high profile real estate project and the music issue was unavoidable, maybe i'll just forward them this link before i let them know that they just can't have music in the site.
Thank you all.R.
Great post. Hits home for me.
Every realestate agent I came across always wanted some catchy music or a flash intro on their website. I always had to tell them #5 (It's tacky and unprofessional). All realestate agents are vain so it worked most of the time.
Number 8 will have me laughing all day.
The way to put it to the test is through analytics. If you run the logs with the music on and off you might see a huge effect or you might see none - or maybe it will go the way that you don't expect.
I make lots of changes to my websites and most of the time I am wrong. But the advantage of analytics is that it measures what you visitors do on your site and not what we think will happen.
99% of the time, I'd agree with EGOL; even when you're 100% sure about the outcome, it almost always pays to test. However... music on a website is one case where it's been tried, it's failed and it doesn't bear testing again. It would be like changing the word "checkout" in the e-commerce process to "finalize process" - you can be sure that it defies convention, lowers conversion rate and hurts rather than helps.
lol... I actually agree that music stinks up a site big time. No doubts about it in my mind. I have not placed it on any of my sites and don't anticipate doing that.
However, I am a person who is more convinced by evidence than opinion. And I don't like to view myself as knowing more than my client.
You can learn from them.
Sometimes they are right and you are wrong.
We should give at least some thought to what our clients think instead of immediately closing off with the idea that our opinion should trump theirs.
In this case about music, I believe that the client is incorrect... but if the client is tenacious about something we should give it second thought ourselves. He might be right.
So, in this situation, instead of refusing to put the music on the site, tell him about webanalytics and offer to give music a try and show the client the stats. One day of testing should be sufficient. If the single page views shoot up and time onsite drops, you will have deomnstrated that you were right. Then tell the client that lots of things can be tested that way - including his conversion rate. I think that this experience will cultivate an analytics client who respects your skill and values your abilities and wants to do a lot of development with you. This client loves music and will sing about you to all of his friends.
But in the event that the music becomes the draw of the site you must be willing to eat your hat.
The problem with this is that it means putting up the music inorder to complete the test. It is often harder to get permission to REMOVE something than it is to add it. Marketers are like flies on shit. They always cluster around the freshest pile so my strategy is to delay until a fresher pile attracts their attention. When they ask for something to be done on the site that I don't approve of and reason doesn't work (rarely does). My first step is to ignore them. Its amazing how many times a change is requested on a whim. If they ask for it again I tell them that I need something done by THEM before I can complete their request. That's the secret of marketers...they don't do any work they put it off on other people. If you ask them to do something and produce a deliverable they rarely get it done so you have an excuse not to complete their dumbass request. If you do get stuck completing their request, EGOL's suggestion is a good one to fall back on. Get your numbers and take it to someone above the marketing team. Show them the business justification against it.
Just start slapping them. Or zap them with an electric shock every time they even think about it.
I read somewhere that if you place a button that turns the music OFF, it will be the most clicked button on the page versus a button to turn the music ON which will receive very few if any clicks.
It's a bad idea because people often surf the Internet when they should be working. The last thing you want is to click a link and have Hawaiian Music blaring loud enough for the boss to know that you're planning your vacation instead of working. (Busted & No Sale)
You can't control the volume of the end user. The end user might have been playing video games at full blast a while ago, but not now. They might have just put the baby to sleep and without warning... Crappy music suddenly starts playing at full blast and wakes the baby.
I HATE it when that happens! Arrrg!
My favorites from this blog post:
oontz-oontz facehugger Hammer pants
how to convince a client not to use a splash page would be useful, not that we don't already know, but a critique with reference to dust farts and hammer pants is what the debate needs.
Yeah ... abomination they call a profile... crappy emo song... I see you like my expressions.
I really appreciate this post. Music on websites is just one of those issues many people don't understand.
I will back out of a website immediately upon hearing any sound made by the website. It is offensive. No commercial website will ever get my business if they use background audio of any kind.
I would probably appeal to the clients interesting in saving face, by strongly suggesting a jingle or short audio sequence at opening.
I think for most pages, it is inappropriate. I've rarely seen or heard 'logo' sounds, but I'm surprised that CBS or ABC doesn't use them.
They have invested in some great four second theme sounds that really make you feel good when you hear them.
Even a short piece of music which fades to zero volume quickly is not objectionable for most people.
I agree ! Music in the background is bad and never helps the user ...
If a client request music then you can assume that the client doesnt have any idear of what a website should be about.
The problem with this is that it means putting up the music inorder to complete the test. It is often harder to get permission to REMOVE something than it is to add it. Marketers are like flies on shit. They always cluster around the freshest pile so my strategy is to delay until a fresher pile attracts their attention. When they ask for something to be done on the site that I don't approve of and reason doesn't work (rarely does). My first step is to ignore them. Its amazing how many times a change is requested on a whim. If they ask for it again I tell them that I need something done by THEM before I can complete their request. That's the secret of marketers...they don't do any work they put it off on other people.
Old article but still good. One thing not mentioned are people who use speech software. They're almost in the same boat as those listening to music on their computers, except they may be relying on their speech software to navigate the web (such as with a screen reader). Now the music on the site is more than annoying: it's blocking access.
If your client is a kind person who assists little old ladies crossing the street, let him/her know that music on a site can be the equivalent of putting a big "NO CRIPPLES ALLOWED" sign on their site, which if posted on any door of any brick-and-mortar shop would horrify everyone.
Having a start and stop button (both) on a site can be the best of both worlds. I'd even go so far as to say, no Autoplay even on a band site. Let the user specifically ASK to hear the music with a Start button.
It is much the same as settling down to read a nice novel and as you open the cover, some guy bursts through your front door with a ghetto blaster!
:)
Yeah, not a big fan of music on web sites.
You can bet that the abondoment rate must be very high, otherwise you would hear music on MSN.com, Yahoo.com, Google.com.
I wouldn't dream of putting it on any of the sites that I controll.
Hahaha! Can you imagine (in the words of Matt) a "bit of oontz-oontz" on Google.com? There would be riots... civil wars.. hahaha
One other potential problem about music on websites is all the boring legal licence stuff. In these DRM-days you can't just put an MP3 on your website, and unless you use something from the 1%-of-music-that-is-royalty-free-and-unprotected-collection you can be pretty sure there's someone ready to sue you for about a billion dollars because you played their song without paying them a billion dollars in advance.
This is a very valid point!
EGOL has the take. I have a well trafficked test site set up with an A/B split test. During the meeting if the client wants music, a crappy banner or some other nonsense I put it up on the test site. At the end of the meeting I show them the results. Never had a problem. (Not quite true I had one client who wanted to see if Mozart was less of a turn off than Queen).
I always have my sound muted. I wouldn't know if I could deal with websites with sound/music on a regular basis.
This is a very common problem indeed. The sales & marketing manager (owner's lazy son) at a company I once worked for seemingly got his B2B telecom design inspiration from the MySpace profiles of teenage girls he was stalking. It was impossible to reason any sense into him, and I had to go along with helping design his atrocities. For instance, we had lengthy discussions about an animated talking telephone handset.
I'd *love* to post the URL here, but I gotta watch my employer backlink karma.
I read a good explanation for this kind of folly in an interview with a usability expert on Marketing Sherpa. He theorized that CEOs and owners feel their main role is to have an almighty "grand vision" - which too often translates into a misguided obsession with tacky animated Flash splash screens, music, voice overs, and other usability disasters.
Sounds familiar: How to ruin a web design :)
Or just point them to this site. Not music, but I am sure they get the point that non-user initiatated sound is NOT a good feature.
https://www.dmv.ca.gov/
I've got a worse one: https://seattlescuba.com/
My Garsh!! "Hello...., " That took about a second and a half to be annoying, and not a button anywhere on the page to turn it off. I can't believe this is still there so many months later.
I have been dealing with this problem for quite a while. Now I will send my clients to your blog post. I agree with every thing you have posted here. If they absolutely have to have music, put a start and stop button on the page and let the visitor decide when and if they want to listen to your music and just how much of it they want.
There are still people who want music in the background? Last time I even thought of using it was back in 1998.
Absolutely agree and would like to add (maybe make it a point #1) the fact that most poeple listen to their own music while browsing the web!! ... i am sure all of us (when running into a site with background music and the site is blasting their awful track along with your favourite song) are panically looking for the most desired button at the moment "SOUND OFF" facing another problem at that point when the webdesigner successfully hid the button somewhere and i can't find it instantly ...and now i am already so agrevated i wanna leave the site. "great objective" indeed :-) ... i think the technical term for this is driving off traffic right? ;-)
number 8 was brilliant and so true.
You've got a "knack for convincing your client", huh? Let me tell you, if this is the level of your convincing arguments, you're in trouble the next time your client truly wants something, idiotic or not. That they end up not having background music has absolutely nothing to do with your arguments and everything to do with someone else talking to them in a language people want to hear.
If you're going to criticize my arguments you could at least provide a few of your own. :/
This may be true for HTML pages, but when you run a complete flash site - music is VERY common! And not tacky or outdated. MOST flash sites that have music do have either a very simple "on/off" button or a more complicate "MP3" player. Please be sure to be with the times as you say you are. Flash is becoming THE way to create websites and with that you will see more music on sites. Even the BIG web design agencies use music or background sounds on their own sites.
First paragraph of this blog post:
Music is a good idea.