Girl in machine

Do you think this is real?

walk of shame

Working in creative design, we're always on the lookout for good ad campaigns. Here are some recent favorites.

www.walkofnoshame.com
www.orangeunderground.com

zoom zoom zoom

An ethnographer I've been working with recently spent time meeting with a series of web users in their natural habitats to observe their behaviors as they research products and shop online.

Of all the things he noticed, one thing that surprised him most was the importance of the zoom functionality on product pages.

We got into a discussion about the use of intense zoom as a replacement for touch when shopping online, and several useful examples surfaced from within the team of very well done zoom functionality.

One example users liked was a Northface.com product page.

My favorite discussion from the day was around shopping by outfit. An awesome example of this, which was done with some inexpensive video, lives on Martinandosa.com. From this page, select a different filter to see more motion.

Another site that really caught my fancy in this regard was Madewell1937.com. Great use of video throughout, which all seems to have been shot in real time as they photographed the clothes.

should video autoplay?

a debate we're having on one of my current projects hinges on whether or not video embedded on websites should autoplay. my gut belief is that it shouldn't, but often times, designers and clients feel differently. as marketers, we want to be as in-your-face as possible... but does it annoy?

i remember reading somewhere that video should never autoplay, but i can't recall the source. i'm thinking it may have been the marketing sherpa's landing page handbook.

a discussion on linkedin today reminded me of the debate: as people answered the question of whether video raises conversions on websites, many respondents mentioned the same thing. do not autoplay.

• "video that starts to play, most of the times accompanied by a irritatingly high volume of sound, is one thing that makes me close the browser window immediately"
• "As long as the movie is clicked as an option and does not automatically load you won't run into any problems with people being scared off."
• "I agree you must take care not to make it annoying - I would never set a video to auto play without muting the sound at the same time. "
• "Of course, do NOT have the video audio autoplay. That's just annoying."

this set of users seemed to have some strong feelings about video that autoplays, but how could we be sure?

A/B testing and a few simple metrics could probably give us some insight. randomly alternate between 2 versions of a particular page: one on which the video autoplays, and another on which the video's start is controlled by the user. analyze the exit rates for each. look specifically at the average time spent on the page amongst visitors who exited. compare conversions from the page (or, at a simpler level, measure clickthroughs to your desired next step). what can you learn?

until further notice, I vote no on video autoplay-- particularly if the video includes sound. as far as whether i can convince my clients and designers of that... we'll see.

any thoughts/research on the issue?