I quite often come across clients who have a website that automatically plays music. When I advise them to disable this feature, I come across as a killjoy: “But it’s nice!”, “It’s cool music”, “But why, we’ve already paid for this feature”…
Here are 3 good reasons not to do that:
Music is intrusive
Like PopUps, it intrudes into the visitor’s private sphere. When you know that many people browse at work, you can imagine the effect of booming music in the middle of the office if they forgot to mute the sound. How embarrassing. Especially when it takes 5 minutes to figure out how to turn the thing off (when that’s even possible…).
Music is highly subjective
Maybe you think the music on your site is nice and “cool”, but that’s still your taste. Don’t impose it on others at the risk of displeasing them. Many of us listen to our own music on the computer or tablet: having another interfering sound on top of it is frankly unpleasant.
Music slows down the page
When you know that page loading speed is a criterion measured by search engines and has a strong impact on the site’s bounce rate, it is better to avoid slowing down the page with unnecessary content.
In the end, for a commercial site, you have everything to lose by playing music on your website: at best, you will provoke indifference; at worst, you will drive away the majority of your visitors. Don’t take that risk.
