There’s a lot of talk out there about the pros and cons of using sliders as part of your overall website design. Some love them and some hate them, probably in equal parts. Others think they’re great for certain kinds of websites but not for others.

We’ve a hearty portfolio of web designs behind us both with and without sliders so I guess that lands us firmly in the latter camp. Either way, the slider is always one of the first things to come up in our design strategy meetings.

The question of whether or not to use a slider in our web designs frequently gives us pause. That’s because the decision to use a slider on a website is not just a question of aesthetics. A great many factors contribute to the decision so we’ve decided to outline a few of them here. That way you’ll also be able to carefully consider using a slider when you’re making plans for your new website design.

 

The Good: Sliders and the Power of A Strong Image in Web Design

 

Done well sliders can be an amazing addition to the overall design and objective of your website. First and foremost sliders are great storytellers. We all enjoy good picture books and often there can be nothing more powerful or thought provoking than a strong image.

 

Web Design for Charities

That’s exactly why charitable organisations tend to benefit greatly from strong image sliders on the homepage of their website designs. Picture this – on the homepage there is an image of the tear-streaked face of a young child, sitting curled up in the corner of a dirty dank room. He’s wearing ill-fitting clothes, his face and hands are dirty, and he looks as though he hasn’t eaten for weeks. His sad eyes look directly out at you from the screen and in them you see his desperate plea for help. Beside him, over to the left, there is only one line of content that reads, ‘This is David. He has been beaten and bruised, but he has not lost his voice’. Then there is a small bright yellow button that insists we ‘Click here to read David’s story ’. Every ounce of empathy you possess will simultaneously compel you to avoid exposing yourself to such heart ache and to click that button to find out more, to see if you can help, to listen compassionately to David’s story.

Sliders are perfect for these kinds of website designs. There is an immediate emotional engagement with the image presented to us and the CTA buttons are designed to begin a story that will lead me deeper into the website in search of answers. Having visitors to your website go deeper into your pages is exactly what you want! More engagement brings a higher possibility of conversion. It’s powerful stuff and it’s also the perfect use of a slider!

 

Shop ‘till You Drop Website Design

Another ideal setting for the slider is, of course, e-commerce websites. On a web shop-front, sliders can come in very handy for advertising sales, deals, and special offers. But e-commerce sites tend to be busy. That is, they’re busy with a variety of content formats like text, image and/or video. For that reason, it’s important to keep e-commerce sliders short, concise, and direct. If you are offering me 25% off a fabulous pair of shoes, then do just that and only that. When E-commerce sites get into fussy details on their sliders they tend to be ignored much quicker. The folks over at the Nielsen Norman Group have shown that when it comes to sliders oftentimes because the move“… users automatically assume that it might be an advertisement, which makes them more likely to ignore it.”

For fear your slider will end up looking too much like an advertisement remember ‘less is definitely more’. Use them to give enticing snippets of the delights within your website and use strong CTA buttons to lead your visitors into the conversion focused areas of your website.

 

The Art of Web Design or Web Design and the Artist

Sliders are also great if your business demands less talking and more listening or watching. Real Estate Agents and Artists, be they musicians, painters, photographers, or videographers can get great exposure through a full width slider. There are plenty of artists who shy away from offering descriptions and lots of text on the websites for fear they will impose confining interpretations on their work. They prefer to let their art speak for itself and using a well-designed slider gives them the chance to wow visitors the minute they arrive.

 

The Bad: Sliders, SEO, Conversions and other pesky web design problems

Slow, Slower, Slowest web design

The main disadvantage of sliders is that they can sometimes affect the load time of your website. This can be frustrating for visitors and if they don’t want to wait around for the slider to load and that means you may miss your prime opportunity to make a great first impression. When you upload images to use on your slider make sure that have been resized to suit the online environment. Images for use online need to be good, clear and crisp looking but they don’t need to be anything like the quality of a photo for printing. Another thing that may help is to not overdo it. If you can get your message across in three slides then don’t use seven just for the sake of it.

 

Don’t Kill the Conversion Web Design

What’s more, the folks over at the Nielsen Norman Group have conducted a really interesting study which shows that visitors don’t always engage well with sliders. In the study, Jacob Nielsen explores a number of reasons why sliders might be bad for business. At one point early in the study he refers to them as ‘Conversion Killers’ because they inhibit user control. That means that having a slider that is automated, set at a pace that is too fast, or lacking any kind of pause of stop button, may be causing visitors to ignore your slider altogether.

 

Website Design and the SEO Boss

Maybe the strongest ‘bad’ mark against sliders is that they are not, according to Harrison Jones of Search Engine Land, SEO friendly. His article, called Homepage Sliders: Bad For SEO, Bad For Usability, gets right to the heart of the matter. He outlines three significant ways that sliders impact badly on your websites optimisation. One surprising result he outlines is the number of sites that use sliders in conjunction with shallow content, or worse, with no content at all. Sliders cannot and should not replace quality, customer focused content, he argues. So, just like we suggested earlier, to get the most out of a slider make sure you are using them together with great content on your homepage and as an effective method of getting your visitors to go deeper into your site where you will have a wealth of great content for them to explore.

 

Web Design and Alt…Alt…Alternative ways

It’s not all bad, though, because there is a way to improve slider SEO. This method, however, will never replace having plenty of useful and meaningful content on your website. To optimise your website slider use image alt tags which will draw attention in Google Images search results. Beware, though, because recent Google updates have now made it that when users find results in Google Images they are no longer brought immediately through to your website when they click on the image. Instead users are shown a preview of the image and, through the use of two buttons, given the option to either ‘View Image’ or ‘Visit Page’. You won’t get the click through traffic to your website unless the user actually clicks the ‘Visit Page’ button.

 

The Ugly: Web Design and the ‘I Can’t See You’ Factor

 

When a slider becomes a major component of a web design it can cause significant problems for people with visual and/or hearing impairments. Screen readers cannot describe images. Instead they search for the text content available on the website to translate into spoken word or braille for those who need it. It’s important then to seriously consider your target audience when designing a website that uses a slider. So, in what way can you overcome these obstacles in order to make your website design accessible to everyone?

 

Web Design and Our Friend ‘Alt’

For starters you can use alt text. As stated above, alt text can, in certain circumstance, compensate for the disadvantages of sliders. By providing a detailed alt description for every image in your slider, those with visual or hearing impairments can have that data translated by the software on their screen readers.

If you would like to know more about making your website design available to those with impairments then have a look at WebAIM.org. The have a lot of really useful information about how people with impairments engage with the internet.

 

Web Design and Standing Still

Another common problem with sliders in web design is that oftentimes very little consideration is given to the more technical aspects of how they function. That is to say, if little or no thought is put into them, many users who have difficulties with reading or with processing information may struggle with the speed at which they rotate.

Remove this difficulty by offering clear ‘Pause’ or ‘Stop’ buttons. Make sure there are directional arrows placed clearly on the slider so that if the reader doesn’t get to finish what they were enjoying on one slide they can easily call it back.

In fact, always make sure your slider is set at a reasonable pace. There is nothing worse, for any reader, than a string of big images flashing speedily past their eyes on a screen.

 

The Outcome: Web Design, Sliders and the Decision Making Process

 

So how do sliders weigh up in the end?

We think sliders are a fantastic addition to a web design so long as everything has been considered. Look at your business and consider whether its online presence could be enhanced or inhibited by a slider. Always remember that it is so important to have a clear outline of your objectives and expectations when considering your website design. And, it is equally important to also think long and hard about your intended audience. If you think they might include people with impairments that make absolutely certain you do everything you can to make their visit to your website as easy and enjoyable as possible.
Sliders can be stunning so don’t shy away from using them just because there are a few technical issues to consider. Instead plan properly using the guidelines above and write down what features of a website design will matter most to your business. Once you have put some serious thought into a website design, and taken into consideration all the technical aspects of that design, you’re in a much better position to decide whether a slider on your website is the best option for you.

 

Winning Website Design and Spectular Sliders

Sliders done well can no doubt give your website design the wow factor. Tell an amazing story in pictures, shout out to customers about your amazing deals, or showcase your latest art work or property for sale. Just do it mindfully! That way you’ll end up with a beautiful web design worth boasting about.