I recently stumbled across a very thoughtful article by Mike Gintz, Director of Design & UX at Velir, a digital design agency. In a post titled Why You Shouldn’t Use A Carousel to Feature Content, he makes a pretty solid argument that perhaps it’s time to lay the ubiquitous image carousel to rest, once and for all.
Why, you ask? Four good reasons, each of which Mike explains in more detail:
- Carousel clickthrough rates are terrible for every slide except the very first one
- Most carousels don’t indicate what’s on subsequent (or previous) slides
- Carousels that auto-rotate rarely do so at an appropriate speed
- Carousels compromise information retention
Image carousels, he says, “caught on because they seemed like a magical way to prioritize content,” but instead have become a crutch for designers and developers, along with their beleaguered clients. And Mike’s not just telling you what not to do; he has a very clear, very simple solution.
Which I’m not giving away here, because I think you should hear what he has to say.
Head over to Mike’s post and take notes.
Photo by Ian Britton | freefoto.com
Nearly every day I get messages from from designers and developers. You ask to pick my brain, for some best practice advice or insight on my own methods. And what I hear most often is that you feel unprepared and overwhelmed; that you have more questions than answers.
More often than not, I just don’t have time to answer everyone. And that bothers me. I owe a successful career to the fact that throughout my life, some very kind people took time out of their very busy lives to share what they knew with me.
In that spirit, I’d like to give back to all of you: you ask and I will answer in a weekly blog post. Ask me your most burning questions – from process to strategy to design to contracts to client politics.
