Imagine this: You’re driving through Osnabrück on Neumarkt, and next to the road are five large billboards plastered with posters on various topics. You put on your sunglasses and try to get through the street as quickly as possible because you just want to reach the other end of the city unscathed. Millions of users are exposed to this unpleasant situation every day when they visit the numerous websites with sliding homepages. Instead of asking the user why they’re actually here and what they’re looking for, sliders force a motley mix of content on them—content that doesn’t really interest them at all.
How Sliders Became a Popular Website Element
About 10 years ago, animated elements suddenly started popping up everywhere. Thanks to improved bandwidth and new technologies like jQuery, it became a breeze to implement elaborate animations on the web. These new elements became absolute eye-catchers and spread rapidly.
Today, these elements can still be seen on almost every website and have since become almost a standard feature. Unfortunately, very few website owners realize that they’re overwhelming users with content in the most important part of the site—and that this is also detrimental to the homepage’s performance. Sliders are often perceived as advertising banners, and website visitors habitually “ignore” them. On many sites, the banners rotate so quickly that the content cannot be noticed, let alone read.
Reasons that, from today’s perspective, argue against the use of sliders:
1. Sliders slow down the website
In most cases, sliders consist of large images that take an extremely long time to load. What’s particularly unfortunate is that users don’t even look at the images, yet they still degrade the user experience.
2. Sliders are not suitable for smartphones
Sliders date back to the desktop era. Smartphone usage is rising sharply. Large images do not display well on small screens, and website performance plays a particularly important role here.
3. Home sliders assume users are passive
Anyone who uses a slider element may hope that a user will browse the website at their leisure. The reality, however, is different—users want to get to their destination quickly. If this expectation isn’t met, they’ll leave the website and use another service.
4. Slider elements are often promotional
Users decide very quickly whether content is interesting or uninteresting to them. If content comes across as too promotional, you’ll drive your users away very quickly.
How can a homepage be designed effectively?
More and more website providers are slowly realizing that while sliders are convenient, they’re often not the best solution. There are good alternatives:
- a large cover image with a compelling headline
- an input field where users are asked to specify their preferences
- a selection based on target groups (e.g., women, men, children)
- a product video
- a showcase of the top product with text highlighting its unique selling point (USP)
Why not give it a try and focus your website’s content on what really matters? We’d be happy to help you with that.