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Don't do it. A lot of people (myself included) open many new tabs rather than browse in a single one. If I suddenly have a noise coming from a tab: I have to find the offending tab When I do find it, I'm annoyed with whichever company / site it is I then close the tab There is no good reason to do on a website. In an app, I would still argue against ...

Answer this first: Is the user expecting it? To cite some actual recommendations rather than opinions, the punkchip article Autoplay is bad for all users is 3 years old but as valid as ever. The article should be read in it's entirety, but quotes the W3C’s specification for accessibility (WCAG 2.0). There is a small note in one of the audio criterion, ...

The Microsoft Office suite appears to have put a greater emphasis on Add-Ins. For default installations, none are included hence the splash screen only stays up for a very short time. However, for Office power users, they may have many Add-Ins (especially enterprise users who develop their own custom AddIns) which will significantly slow the startup time ...

While I concur with all the others who recommend not doing this, there are some (few) products where start-up sounds makes sense: Hardware boot, where the Mac startup chime and the IBM POST beep codes both signify that nothing has gone wrong with the hardware (or, alternatively, that something has gone wrong with the hardware). Depending on the hardware ...

Ask them what business objectives having a splash screen fulfills or how it enhances the main purpose of the website. A website should be subordinate to its business objectives (I'm using business objectives as a general term here, meaning overall objectives for the site). If you can get your client thinking in those terms, it'll make your client ...

You might try giving him an example based in the real world. Choose one: 1) Go to a store that let's him get right inside and finish his business. -or- 2) Go to a store that requires him to stop and listen to the sales guy standing in front of the store, telling him how awesome the store is that he's about to enter before being allowed to enter. If he ...

It's all about expectation and convention / consensus, also in some respect it's about courtesy to your user, and not irritating them. Web Pages - No, never. The experience of opening web page which plays a sound, is widely accepted as negative. You will be hard pressed to find a popular web page/app that does this, Generally this consensus has been ...

If your computer is slow/the application is taking too long to load, you have the option to minimize or close the launch of the application. It is all about making the user feel in control at all times. Most of the time the user has no control if he launches the application, look at adobe suit, the applications take a while to load and there is nothing you ...

I'll answer the question from a slightly different angle... The intention would be - evoking emotions on the user - make the brandname "stick" I think that's what needs the focus. There's two issues here: evoke emotion Sound can certainly evoke emotion. However, in the context of a user trying to accomplish a task, what are the emotions they'd ...

Checkboxes should always be shown in the affirmative, so you shouldn't use "Don't show this on startup". You could however use "Hide this on startup" as an option that doesn't have the checkbox filled, which is what I would suggest. The action that someone will be thinking is more along the lines of "I want to hide this screen", so the action should ...

The goal of this sound is to associate the brand with the listener's experience on the site. The risks of this going wrong seem to outweigh the benefits. First, the person ended up on your site hopefully through a conscious decision. So you aren't giving the user any new, useful information by playing a sound. Meanwhile, there are plenty of scenarios where ...

Discuss with them how search engines mean that people no longer typically enter your site via the home page, instead they will increasingly land on individual pages within the site instead that were relevant to their search. If they have an existing site show them the trends in their own analytics. They thus need to balance the returns on their budget from ...

I wouldn't say screens with instructions are evil. There are of course some disadvantages of using them, namely that the user is not allowed to use the application right after it is launched for the very first time, but this only means that when the UI does not need any explanations, you shouldn't include these, as they do more harm than profit. Every time ...

As much as I generally hate About.com, I must prescribe to the opinions here: Pros and Cons of Adding Sound to Web Pages. Even if it is a little dated with its 'Invalid HTML 4.01' commentary! "You should always be careful when you use sound on web pages. After intrusive advertising, sound that turns on automatically and cannot be turned off is one of ...

I know there is advice (and very good advice at that) to generally not have startup/welcome screens in software. I'm not sure I agree with that advice. Your website, application or game's initial state is one of the most important things to get right. And by initial state I'm talking about the first launch, where there may be no user data yet, or ...

One thing you forgot to mention was what kind of splash screen is the client wanting? Does he want one of the vapid "welcome to x" intros that were so popular once upon a time (and that they may seem to recall being vogue at one point in time)? If that's the case, then you're hearing a lot of relevant feedback that is often echoed in User Testing. (see ...

It's terribly annoying. Personally, I close sites with intros without even bothering to see whats inside. No one and I mean No One enjoys it after the first visit to the site. The only thing worse than an intro flash is an intro flash that plays music. These should be outlawed!

My quick answer is, splash pages aren't SEO friendly. Robot crawlers are end users too! An important thing to consider about a splash screen (if you have to have one) is the SEO impact it may have. Make sure if the splash screen uses Flash that it degrades to an HTML friendly version. But having a splash page doesn't always get you the proper ...

Follow these steps and you'll be fine: Make a list of 10 websites - half of them with splash screens; Sit with your client in front of a computer; Ask your client to visit the "About us" page of each site. Make sure your client visits all 10 pages. Then explain to your client that - users visit much more than 10 pages in a single session. - users are ...

Set up some kind of A/B marketing test (or multivariate) with versions of the website (with and without different splash variations) available. There are several ways to do this with several 3rd party resources. Since a Splash page is a Marketing tool, encourage them to do this Marketing Testing and then you'll have real stats to present that are specific ...

The convention I've seen the most is a static page with some tips or interesting information about the application in question. A few minutes after reading your question, I came across the following in Team Fortress 2: This splash page does a lot of things. It gives me targets for me to play against, it gives stats I would periodically report on, it gives ...

Personally, I immediately close and navigate away from sites with music ... with only one exception. Music web sites ... If I go to a site for a band, musician or artists it's THE ONLY time I expect to hear music playing from my browser when I haven't explicitly asked it to. On high traffic web sites it invariably gets the nuts squished out of it through ...

Of course you can - but you probably shouldn't... Sound is an important design element, but it's very difficult to get it right. In general, users will find such sound elements annoying. A subtle notification can, however, be part of the branding you're after. The Windows Skype client is one example of an application with a noticeable startup/login sound. ...

only if you have a really really awesome sound and a neutral to great site or app OR you have a really really awesome and/or popular and/or indispensable and/or addictive site and a very very SHORT or unobtrusive sound and some ACTUAL REASON the sound needs to exist OTHER than to tell everyone else the user's business. like (and i use some analogy here, be ...

There are so many ways this can go wrong. The expectation on the web is that sound and video is something you initialize yourself, unless the sole purpose of the page is to display the video or play that sound. Even then it is good practice to provide an indication on any link to that page informing the user that it will trigger media playback. You would ...

I think @Bazzz and @JohnGB hit the nail on the head. I would also encourage you to not try to sell them once they are on your site. Instead help them buy. They are already there, and unless they see something that interest them, a nice jingle won't get them to come back. Jacob Nielsen put this best when he said the following; Even though it does little ...

Here you will find a very visual list of iPhone app splash screens. Most of them are pretty, very few are functional. Unless you find eye-candy and branding functional. Functionality will depend on what your application is intended for.

I've just implemented a 'getting started' screen. Sorry I can't show you the screen so I'l describe the look and feel. We knew we had two types of users and so presented three sections with the third being 'Customisation'. Under these header sections will showed the mostly likely actions. For customisation we displayed links such as 'Personalise' and ...

Blizzard makes the best of flash screens. When they have a new game out or an expansion pack, they make all their sites display a teaser of that as a splash screen. They have a huge audience and most of it care to see that splash screen. If a site implements that rare kind of splash screen - it may be ok with users.

If you're customer wants a splash screen and is willing to pay for it, why wouldn't you do it? In the end, its the client that pays who and he has to like the page. People are allowed to have bad taste and bad manners. It just has to be clear to him, that you wouldn't recommend it. If you don't have the credibility so that he believes you, when you tell him ...