Ethical Autoplay?

Posted on Aug 12th, 2009 by Chris M.

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about how to most effectively use video as an online sales tool, and it seems to me that auto starting a video can be a power conversion tool. The problem is, it also can be really (really!) annoying to some (or many) of your users. Like most things, I think that your target audience should guide your decision about autoplay, but if you do decide to use it (or at least to test it) how can you avoid some of the pitfalls? I have a few ideas that I’ve been playing with and I shot a real quick video to demo them. Let me know what you think, and also if you see any other potential problems/solutions.

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  • http://twitter.com/newmediahub newmediahub

    Chris Morrell posted: Ethical Autoplay? (http://bit.ly/GcnnJ)

    This comment was originally posted on Twitter

  • http://twitter.com/inxilpro inxilpro

    Thinking about issues surrounding autostarting video on the web: http://bit.ly/3bzA9Y

    This comment was originally posted on Twitter

  • http://laurengalanter.com lauren galanter

    First of all, thanks for addressing this issue. I think it often doesn’t get enough attention. Also, I like the term/concept of “ethical autoplay” a lot.

    Another option as I see it would be to have to video autoplay, but not have any audio. Of course, this may defeat the purpose of autoplay if you’re using it as a sales tool. But can work for other video scenarios.

    I like the idea of giving the user a warning that the video will start, but perhaps it could be made more noticeable, like a coutdown inside the player. Not having it play in a background tab is great though.

    On the whole, I don’t think having a web page do things automatically is good (autoplay, forcing pages to open in new windows or tabs). I think the user should retain control of their experience.

    • http://cmorrell.com Chris Morrell

      I tend to agree with letting the end user retain control of their experience, but sadly in the world of sales and marketing you have to give that up sometimes. I do think that playing video muted can be a great option in some circumstances, but like you mentioned, it kind-of defeats the purpose when it comes to marketing.

  • Ben Novack

    In my book, this is sort of like saying “ethically punching people in the face;” I think these suggestions would improve the current state of autoplay, but only in the sense that better food improves being imprisoned.

    I’ll echo Lauren on audio – one of my single biggest frustrations with autoplay is autoplaying audio, since I nearly always have music playing when I’m at my computer. Ironically, the worst offender for ruining my ears is sites about music, like band sites.

    At the end of the day, autoplay means disrespecting your users, assuming that you have their total attention and that the rest of your content isn’t compelling enough to make them want to actually click a “play” button and watch something on purpose. There are few things that drive me away from a site faster, and I’m not sure there’s a way to make it ethical enough to counter my dislike. Certainly your suggestions here, while representing some progress, aren’t nearly enough.

    • http://cmorrell.com Chris Morrell

      I definitely see where you’re coming from, Ben, and I think that probably using autoplay on a site that targeted mainly at tech professionals would be suicide (although SEOmoz does it). I think it really comes down to the situation you’re in—there is the occasional time when it might be appropriate to punch someone in the face. And if you do punch someone (to take your analogy too far), you want to make sure your fingers are tightly curled and that your thumb is on the outside of your fist. 90% of time time autoplay probably isn’t appropriate. But some times it’s a necessary evil, and I think it’s a good idea to think about how to mitigate its issues.

  • http://danieldelrio.com Daniel Del Rio

    Great ideas thrown around here. I’ve actually seen sites using the mouse move thing to wait to autostart videos. The only time I don’t mind auto-play is if the purpose of the site is to view videos like youtube.com.