I’ve noticed a few sites that have embedded media on their sites inside posts. Here are some of the issues that I have personally have had with them.
- Having the loading of the video on the front page slows everything down and can cause problems for browsing the posts. This can occur specifically with ustream boxes or media that needs to connect to another server.
- The flow of the post, .. sometimes centering is a *good* thing. The first thing people look for when going to your site is the flaws.
- Auto-Run of the media that is embedded.
According to behavior psychology studies people generally look for the flaws of something to make a judgment. reference “Horney’s List of Neurotic Needs“. Karen Horney spent quite a bit of time studying basic and advanced neurotic behaviors and those neurotic behaviors can be theorized to give an underlying opinion on what types of ways people accept or deny things.
When studying behavior psychology it’s often theorized that these traits can also cause people to look at other things much in the same way. Flaw’s in them self can be related to flaw’s in what they are looking at.
This condition I have found relates to surfing the web as well. I have noticed that when viewing posts I like against posts I do not like; a lot of the time it has to do with the presentation that the post is placed in.
When a website is not designed for the users you want to view your site, it is my understanding that it will be a deterrent for the reader to want to visit. This can include the page-load time to the graphical design of the site itself. Not even necessarily the post or the content of the post.
Auto-run of embedded media may indeed trigger our a basic need self preservation. When we hear noises or not ready for an event to occur we either get startled or get mad that we have to deal with something that is unjustified. There are quite a number of different ideas concerning self preservation, however I have found from personal experience that the main drive is “to not die.”
When embedded media auto-starts when I do not expect it, I could either get startled or angry dependent on the situation. This is not something I would want my users to feel when visiting my website.
Try an extra click.
The wordpress <!–more–> tag can be utilized to allow a user a required click to another post if they wish to see the embedded media in question. This helps with the load times and the aggravation of having to deal with the media to begin with. I realize people want to show something off, but in my opinion it is a determent – a flaw; that people will remember and give a negative reaction. A negative reaction that will more then likely make the reader think twice about going to your site again.
Please think twice about having embedded media on the landing page, i.e. home page of your site. If you MUST do it, make sure it’s not slow-loading applications like ustream that needs to connect and not more then one on the page.
– Philip M. Hofer (Frumph)
And now for one of my favorite songs to listen to right now, Dankann, Aqua Diva – Just Close Your Eyes.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mhUtUuKfRJI[/youtube]
- Notice the centering of the embedded media in the page. I like that. The page keeps a nice flow. Even though the content itself isn’t continually centered; the centering gives the eyes a trained flow in the post.
- Must have WordPress plugin: Viper’s Video Quicktags – A plugin to easily embed media in your posts, made by Alex aka @Viper007Bond
I particularly don’t want anything that is going to chew my bandwidth. Some of us out there do not have unlimited bandwidth options in our countries!
My complaint is more out of necessity. The neurosis is actually caused by having limited bandwidth. 😛
Oh yeah, I also don’t like to see things that may actually be hijacked or compromised – embedded objects can be such things. I’ve been working with security in IT for too long to automatically trust things….. 😉
Great post Phil and true. I hate auto load stuff. I have a lot of graphics on my site and I am giving a great deal of consideration at removing some so it loads faster. The offset is that I think as a comic site, it should organically be visual. The trick is finding a happy medium.
Again, good stuff. I also hope you get a chance to make a post about the gallery feature.
Thanks!