Background music - Yay or Nay?

If people wanted background music they'd do it themselves with media player or itunes.

 

Please don't. Think of the children!

 

Background music on web sites is the worst thing i ever heared.
First of all, it's not background.
Second, If i get to a website late @ night and i forget my speakers turned on (and on preety high volium) - than it's preety making me mad and to get out of the website.

 

I'm new to putting together websites so my thoughts on this come as a high volume web surfer

Personally, I hate background music. I find it off putting and as soon as it starts up, I'm looking to find how to turn it off asap.

 

Include some options there buddy, like a link w/ a quotation that it'll play music once you've clicked on the link..

 

Have an option for background music, a choice to turn it on or off. But don't have it automatically turned on when you visit, that is really annoying.

 

I'd rather cut my own balls off than do something as heinous as enforce background music to the visitor.OK, maybe that's a *slight* exaggeration, but you catch my drift!

 

I know several sites where background music is part of a very well considered design and I can accept it there. But all other sites, where background music is not necessary, with "autoplay=true" parameter going to trash immediately.

 

music thats starts right away kinda puts me off, i just don't like it.

 

Yes, background music is great.

(Just kidding, please don't kill me.)

Answer is NO.

 

I'm sure there are sites "where background music is a part of a very well considered design …" among the millions of sites I haven't visited. I just haven't run into one among those sites I have. Perhaps you could give us links to a couple?

But that's content, not background, right? If it is background, it is obtrusive.

cheers,

gary

 

for example: http://www1.mug.pl/

 

That site fails on so many levels. Where to start? Annoying noise after waiting for splash page. Splash page is Flash with no alternative content for non-Flash users. There's a splash page, period. When finally past the splash and into the entry page, there's nothing there but more Flash with no alternate content, noise and a non-accessible menu. So far I've waited through long downloads on a fast connection for nothing but more annoyance. And, no, the 'music' and odd sounds add nothing (good) to the user experience.

You'll have to do better than that to support your statement.

cheers,

gary

 

No - unless the music is stopped by default and actually adds to the experience when played.

 

It's not my site but I like this design. I don't care about browser which doesn't support flash and medival 38kbps modem users, or blindness etc... etc... Wake up man, It's XXI century and you can make a space travel if you want... That's all.

 

I didn't say Flash wasn't supported, though I usually keep it turned off as few sites make worthwhile use of it. OTOH, Adobe doesn't support my newish dual core 64bit, 2gB mem, dual SATA 40gB drives box, running Firefox in a Linux environment. That would be a fairly modern combination, I think—not exactly last century, is it? Seems Adobe hasn't released a 64bit version—as of last week, anyway.

Nor, it seems were dial-up speed connections an issue. I said I was on a fairly quick connection. It's about 2Mb/sec, usually.

Who mentioned blindness? It is my experience that a substantial number of power users have images and Flash disabled, or run, as I often do, Lynx. It is a sign of unprofessional web development to ignore non-graphic UAs or assistive technology.

The design of the site itself sucks, with peekaboo menus and mystery meat navigation. Both IE6 and Firefox2 experienced freeze-ups[1] during transitions. But, that shouldn't matter, as the content itself was a series of content-free zones, full of buzz words and smoke blowing apparati.

The OP asked about adding bg sound to the site. This site served up some really obnoxious "music". I have no clue how it is/was supposed to support the site or improve the visitor experience. I could see no clear way to shut the sh*t down. And, I took Janis Joplin's "Pearl" out of the cup holder for this! I would not have had any kind thoughts toward MUG.pl had I been listening when their page came up.

If MUG.pl is an example of anything, it is of how not to build a site on oh, so many levels.

cheers,

gary

[1] Each required killing the process and restarting the browser. At least Firefox let me restart with the session restored.

 

Nay its annoying and lame.

 

Nay !!
Music will not attract the people.. it force them to turn their speakers off

 

Yes!
Only if your name is Moby and it's only on the first page.

 

Completely agree. If a site has music built in I always turn the sound off.


MP