Slideshows are one of the many ways to display content on your blog and website.
Unfortunately, slideshows are both ineffective and annoying.
According to Erik Runyon, the Technical Director for Marketing Communications at the University of Notre Dame, wanted to see how effective slideshows were for Notre Dame’s website.
He found people either didn’t engage with the slideshow at all or only clicked through the first slide.
Why we’re tempted to use slideshows
Slideshows are tempting because they allow us to post a lot of image content in an organized and easy to find manner.
The problem is that they are annoying and not user-friendly for your visitors.
I see many news organizations creating slideshow posts of 25 or 50 images. Why would anyone want to click through all of these images? Half the time, I only get to image 5 and then click off because I have lost interest in the post.
Slideshows are often times not user-friendly on mobile devices. With [number] of people using smartphone devices, we want to make sure our content is optimized for viewing on these devices. In some mobile browsers, swiping left or right on a page will bring you to the previously viewed page and not the previous or next slide.
Web managers and brands are also tempted to use this form of content because it can inflate pageviews and other analytic metrics. Since many use the pageview as a metric of success, it’s easy to see why brands would want to use this.
What you should use instead of slideshows
Since many people are scrolling past or only seeing the first slide, content producers should aim to create lists instead of slideshows.
People love scrolling through lists because it’s a much more natural way to consume content.
If you do have to use slideshows for your content, keep them short. Also, give users the opportunity to switch to a list view. This is critical to ensuring mobile users have the best user experience.
Joe Gullo