Hey, I'm J.R.

You can check it out on the front page of DCSki (at time of writing) or, at its permanent home.

Thanks for reading!

Now I’ve got to write one on Vail.

Here’s the start of a new series with an incredibly unique and totally innovative theme: Things I Hate.  Anyone want to guess what it’s going to be about?

That’s right, things I hate. You’re a genius. It’ll be a nice place to let loose my bitter side…

Anyway, the first thing:

Sites that have video that starts playing automatically

Say What?

Remember back in the good ol’ days of “Web0.5″ (there will soon be a similar article on web “versioning”)? People used to have songs and sounds that played in the background when their pages loaded. I’m sure there are still some horrifying sites out  there that still do it. (*cough* MySpace *cough*)

Playing video (and anything else that makes noise) on page load is the same thing.  I despise it, and chances are if you do it, I’ll instantly close your page and never come back (not on purpose, anyway).

Why I Hate It

Let’s examine why auto-playing stuff in the background is moronic:

• Your page is probably open in the background – do you really think you’re the only page I’m viewing right now? Does your page really deserve to command my attention over the other pages I actually wanted to be paying attention to? Umm… NO. I opened it in the background for a reason. I wanted to read it on my own time… until I realized it played something when the page loaded. Now I’ll just close it and never go back.
• I probably have music playing – There’s this crazy new-fangled thing people do: it’s called playing music on their computer while they’re doing other things. Absurd, I know. But do you really think I want my favorite song interrupted by your stupid video? Umm… NO. If I want to see your newest uploaded video, I’ll click play myself, on my time. Which brings me to my next point…
• You’re not letting me choose how to view your site - This point is a bit of a catch-all. I want to view your site the way I want to view it. Don’t force me to view it your way. Your design should be good enough to suggest to me how I should view it, and to lead me to the most important things. You shouldn’t need to be so pushy as to leave me no choice but to view your stinking video.

Chances are, you want me to like your site (point 1). You probably want me to stay around a while (point 2) too. Guess what auto-playing crap on your front page does? No, really, hypothesize away. I’ll wait. Actually I won’t. Yay for asynchronous communication.

I’ll bet if you’re one of the people who needs to be reading this article, you guessed wrong, because you didn’t immediately remove the auto-playing video from your front page.  So let me enlighten you…

It makes the first thought I have about your site a bad one (see point 1), and it makes me close the stinking tab (see point 2) because I don’t feel like finding the pause button, and I’ve realized that the rest of your site is probably just as bad or worse as the front page and is therefore not worth my time.

Here’s the fundamental issue (that’s why I’m making it bigger):
Asking the user to click play is not asking too much. If they want to see your video, they’ll click play. If they don’t, then you probably have much bigger problems, but certainly shouldn’t be forcing them to watch it!

So congratulations. By auto-playing crap on your front page, you have done the opposite of what you meant to and what you need to do to have a successful site. And in the process, you’ve achieved a near-perfect level of FAIL. You should celebrate.

Now go fix your page.

Anyone else hate this as much as I do, or brave enough to admit you think it’s a good idea? Leave a comment. That’s what they’re there for!