Question

Topic: Website Critique

Making Sound Optional In A Video

Posted by astephaniuk on 8/5/2008 at 2:11 PM ET 25 Points
On our home page, we have a "commercial" that has a soundtrack. Its interesting after you see it once but then it's annoying. I'd rather make the sound optional so people can click on it to her the sound but the video can still play.

Do we use a button that says, click here to listen, and leave the soudn off. Does anyone else have any other suggestions?

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RESPONSES

  • Posted on 8/5/2008 at 2:21 PM Accepted
    atephaniuk,

    I'm so thankful you are asking this question instead of just guessing.

    1. Don't have the commercial autoplay. I hate NOTHING more than going to a website and having my computer speakers BLARE. (Especially when I'm sitting up late at night next to my sleeping wife!)

    2. So, in step one we insured that the person wants to see our video, right. That means by default, they are expecting to hear sound...so sound is turned on.

    3. They have watched, now they want to watch again. Have a mute button on the player so they can mute by choice.

    Guaranteeing that they want to see your video makes it 100% okay to have the sound on. Giving them the option to mute it shows that making the experience comfortable for them is your #1 priority.

    Win-Win

    Hope this helps!

    Kris
  • Posted by astephaniuk on 8/5/2008 at 2:43 PM Author
    Great answers.

    I think the consensus is that the commercial should not autoplay.

    There already is an option to mute the sound but when you go to other pages and then back to the home page it starts again.

    Just wondering is anyone has a link to a site that shows how it should be done. Our website is www.nscreditunions.ca
  • Posted by Mikee on 8/5/2008 at 3:39 PM Accepted
    On the code (html) that calls the flash you can set a parameter. I played around with a page I have in Dream Weaver and I believe, param name="PLAY" value="false", will make it so it does not autoplay. This should go near some of the other parameters like param name="QUALITY" value="high" . These param .. need to be enclosed in brackets. Here is a site with all the possible paramenters, https://help.globalscape.com/help/cutehtmlpro6/code/image_objet_flash.htm

    Hope this helps,
    Mike
  • Posted by Tracey on 8/5/2008 at 8:46 PM Accepted
    TED.com is a good example -- the site requires the user to press the play button to play the videos.

    Or, if you want the flash to autoplay but not the sound (which I think is OK) -- just have a speaker icon next to the flash. When the user clicks that icon, the sound turns on.
  • Posted by Frank Hurtte on 8/6/2008 at 12:13 AM Member
    one more vote for a play video button...
  • Posted by astephaniuk on 8/6/2008 at 7:52 AM Author
    Thank you! A special thank you, to you Tracey, for the reminder about TED.com. Been meaning to check out the site.

    Now I feel I have some support for turning off the video to help ensure a better experience for the user.
  • Posted by astephaniuk on 8/6/2008 at 7:54 AM Author
    thanks kris for the insight
  • Posted on 8/6/2008 at 9:00 AM Accepted
    +1 vote for a play video button
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