Instead of focusing visitors on a single powerful offer, they distract users by changing every X seconds. I’d also add that having thumbnails adds to the usability language of the carousel. Go figure.). One example that comes to mind that a slideshow on the home page works well I think is nba.com. I can understand the reasoning of not making it automatic, but if you look outside of the web, automatic playing such as playlists for video/audio content have been very successful in regards to UX and User gratification. If there are updates to the post, it would be easier to better follow the point if they are clearly noted or grouped. Without fail, by the time I’m ready to take action, the slider changes. But some time they make much refferal for you to boost extra traffic especially for new websites that is very benificial, if agree plz comment.. How else would you suggest promoting three different products in a small area at the top of your homepage? Running a special just run 1 special. Sliders are amazing for conversion rates if used properly and the images are well designed. The first slider I saw was a novelty for about 5 seconds. Two reasons: I’m not alone. I think the only way to maximise the usability of a carousel is to give it a scrollbar. Just because some companies shove advertising type messages in their carousels it doesn’t mean they’re not a good tool for promoting content. 2. Bonnie I wholeheartedly agree with this article. Each of your examples now uses an automatic slider right now apart from J.J. who use a static slider (I do prefer it this way myself). I have never had the problem of being distracted by them but i also have a strange ability to memorize very small details and take in everything that is going on. One thing that seems to be missing is any commments about sliding images making people feel nauseous. As I remember all 3 basically said the same thing. Because I have dozens of partners who will only partner with me if they have ads displaying on the front page of my site. Still though it’s an interesting idea. Time to lay down the gloves, and get tough. And, because he’d done digital marketing for over 15 years, he must know, huh? Thanks for your article, very useful =D. Did not age well. This message was self-deleted by its author. They add extra weight to the download size of a page thereby making them load slower. We assume nobility in presidents the way we assume that nobody will eat the whole tray of samples at the grocery store when nothing is really stopping them apart from a small paper sign and the meek objections of a minimum wage employee. The slider takes attention away from everything else—the stuff that actually matters, like your value proposition, the content of your site, products, etc. Don’t follow the (waning) fad. So in that case the carousel becomes a very large banner that gets ignored. Another one is the animation time. You might be pleasantly surprised – and remember its only a few weeks to run the test – nothing in comparison to the benefits of a good potential lift. Banners are actually pretty terrible for sending messages to different audiences. “Don’t kill the messenger” – Remember the golden rule of the web: Content is King. Immediately wondered how sliders behind a static message (e.g. You said it in the first paragraph: “While I couldn’t find much large-scale research on the subject…” It’s may however be the end of a trend with designers looking for a new vehicle. I think the idea of a static visual & CTA would be ideal in this case. Way too much information with the message, and all the images crammed into one space, added to that, I didn’t get a chance to even take in the images or text before VROOOOM, next slide… Too fast, and too much per slide. You are also ignoring the fact that its not always about conversion rates and more about brand recognition or giving the site a professional feel to it. From managing a site with about 75k visits per month, the homepage slider gets a click about 1% of the time, that’s across all the panels. I was only trying to show the VP of engineering that I was thinking about such things and noticing them but the forced smile on his face was clear and I knew the interview was over. We saw earlier that we could, through links to email addresses, I used to be completely against anything that moves on a website and wrote a blog post about it. We should not annoy our visitors by adding too much in the same carousel. The one mentioned above from mojothemes was a good example, although way too large for me to find it acceptable to use. If I go on nd.edu, there is one tiny carousel with poor content. Most definitely. Like a few other people have mentioned previously, I was gripped and fully invested during "Part One". However, there is no reason using modern CSS techniques in which you can utilize automatic sliders to enhance a particular user experience.