Real estate on a web page is precious. Every web designer or marketer at some point has felt that there simply isn't enough space to show all the content they want to show. The carousel offered an apparent solution to that problem by cramming several content pieces into the same space, rotating to be individually visible either automatically or by the user's control. The ability to show more content in less space in a way that looked cool made carousels attractive and they can now be seen all over the web. They'd be a great idea if it weren't for two big problems: they don't work and they aren't accessible.
Carousels were cutting-edge at one time. Everyone wanted them in their redesigned websites because they seemed innovative and engaging. It turns out, they're not engaging (at least not any longer) and users tend not to interact with them compared to other content displays.
There have a been a handful of studies around this and some claim slightly higher engagement rates, but most hover around 1% and none that we've seen make it into double-digits.
For all the money and time invested in carousels and the prominent space they likely fill, one would hope they'd be more impactful — but the numbers say otherwise.
Rotating content presentations didn't only provide the opportunity to squeeze more into less using the company's own content. They also presented the chance to sell a growing number of ads in a fixed amount of space.
Over time, this trained website visitors to mentally associate carousels as the web page equivalent of junk mail. Even if the content in the carousel blocks is great and legitimate, most users will never move through it to find out. This doesn't happen by accident, but people actively block it out, exhibiting "banner blindness," which the Nielsen Norman Group defines as "people's tendency to ignore page elements that they perceive (correctly or incorrectly) to be ads."
Carousels present quite a few accessibility challenges so we aren't going to go into a lot of detail on any of the particular aspects. Here are some of the main issues that tend to accompany the use of carousels on a web page:
The more-is-more mindset when it comes to how many messages to deliver to a website visitor hasn't proven effective. So one option to replace the carousel is to choose a specific and a focused piece of content that is most likely to resonate with the target audience.
Getting rid of a carousel doesn't mean hiding the information, but it can be more effective to introduce a subject with a clear and accessible link, keeping the rest of the detail on a separate and focused page. With too much competing for one's attention, all of the extra images, headings, sub-headings, and copy probably will have the opposite effect than what's intended. So depending on the subject and the options available for categorizing links, presenting them in a straightforward manner and letting the visitor choose what they're looking for can make a big improvement.
Two- or three-column displays of content can be a great compromise to a rotating version of the same. The right amount of content is less likely to overwhelm and more like to engage. Columns that are always present offer a few distinct and important benefits that rotating carousels do not:
Videos can be very engaging and effective when there really is quite a bit to share or explain about a topic. They also rank really well in search engines and have the potential to be shared. From the user side, videos are usually enjoyable (as long as they're accessible); from the business side, videos offer some interesting benefits like the ability to track how long people watched a video and to add some life and personality to the subject matter.
Please read Checklist for Creating Accessible Videos to ensure everyone can access the content.
One of the hesitations to getting rid of carousels is the fear that it means giving up the chance to highlight every product or promotion that needs highlighting. In reality, every product or promotion probably doesn't need to be in focus at all times. It can be much more user-friendly to deliberately choose one or two top products or promotions and give them the space they deserve — and update when it's time to update.
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