Hi, What do you guys think about adding a personal audio message to your website? Does that one thing make that much of a difference?
Audio is great, but make sure you don't switch it on as soon as the user visits the page. The W3C's usability guidelines advise against it, and it's annoying as heck when I forget I have the volume turned up!
To add to WillB comments, audio has shown to increase visitor interest and CTR if you are trying to sell something. Great for testimonials.
It always annoys me. If there's audio starting automatically, or even if the "player" is just too blatant on the page, I leave.
Personally I recommend it to clients in situations where I think it will help. I don't recommend it to clients who market to marketers. But on my own site, I like to use it to quickly update my page weekly. Most visiting have read my page and just come back to see what I may have to say this week.
Give people a choice - having a link to a Podcast gives them the choice to hear you drone on and on. If it starts automatically - I kill the browser!
I think it it something to test on your site to see if it works. It doesn't matter what we think unless you are targeting us. Do a split test.
make a link for audio " donot load it automatically " , if you have appealing message it may bring lot of visitors
As others mentioned, don't start the audio on page entry. Audio and video are becoming a big part of the evolving web. These enhancements shoud be approach as an additional part or section of your website and not added like a background image or copy.
Audio isn't new, and I doubt it's the future, imo at least. When it was new, everyone started doing it just because they could... they had no really valid purpose, and that's why it gets so annoying with automatically loading audio, or huge audio players trying to get you to hit play. If anything, video is the next big thing (if you don't want to already classify it as that)... again, you have the same issue. You shouldn't do something just b/c you technically can. I see sites all the time with stupid "welcome" videos... they're ridiculously obnoxious, and even if they don't start on the page loading, they usually stick them right at the top on a huge video player that takes way to much visual space for something that shouldn't even be there. Only add things like audio and video to your site if they'll do something that text can't do. Don't play with fads unless they'll actually provide a benefit to your users. Just hearing your voice to say hello, for example, isn't providing a benefit. Jenn
While I dont like audio on a page, this website offers a pretty cool service: http://www.oddcast.com/sitepal/
That does look pretty cool. Does anyone know if after the 15 day trial, the talking head you created goes away unless you pay?