Websites, sound and music.
December 26, 2006
One of the first things new web designers are tempted to do is add sound to a web site.
Many times though, this is a bad idea because sound slows pages down and often times, annoys people.
The rules of sound on a website:
- If it doesn’t help the web site to communicate the message – you should not have sound.
- Give users a choice whether to listen or not.
Like any other aspect of a website, the decision to add sound should be well thought out.
… just because you like the first few seconds from Dark Side of the Moon, that doesn’t mean looping the mp3 will help your home repair website.
But if (for example,) you had a home repair tip or two, then it would make sense to provide a few mp3’s that people could download – if they choose to.
The best two ways to add sound to a web page:
In a nutshell:
- Just link to mp3 files. This is the easiest way.
- Embed a Flash based mp3 player so that people can play mp3’s right in your web pages.
There are other ways (Windows media, Apple Quicktime) but the above two are universal and easy to work with, for both the web designer and website visitors.
One last point, if you use a Flash mp3 player to add sound to your website, this will prevent people from copying your mp3’s. Well, it will make it much harder.
Stefan Mischook
www.killersites.com
www.killerphp.com
