How to speak to a client about Carousel or sliders in website banners and their usability

Question

Currently, I am working on a university website redesign project. The complication is that they used a lot of image carousels or sliders on their existing website. For example, in the banner, 10 events/programs images are running inside the carousel and some have a hyperlink to a dedicated page.

I am planning to remove the carousel with a hero image and move the other image to events and programs gallery since too many messages will miss the important thing. And the chances of conversion are below 1%. How could I convince the client diplomatically? Because they are crazy to see carousels to show different department images in the home page banner even after I tried to convince them that they are conversion killers.

Answer 1

Welcome to ux.stackexchange @Rajesh! An equally important part of the interaction design process is lending out an ear to the customer or client requirements and interpreting them correctly. Their persistence to continue the carousel based approach could hint at the requirement of making the events/programs visible from the word go, rather than pushing them behind a curtain of a tab. This does not necessarily mean to persist in the current cluttered design as such.

In terms of a quick suggestion to validate things, you could think of a hero section with multiple sub-sections that are a hook to a dedicated event/program page, aligned to what you have been thinking. I performed a quick google search and here's an image that roughly resembles what I mean -

Hope that helps. Happy designing!

Answer 2

It depends on what the business requirements are. If it is important for them to highlight the events then you should come up with a solution that proves efficient and that is the way you can convince them to adopt it.

Here is an alternative idea.

Answer 3

How can you convince them diplomatically? Try presenting them with research findings. This is the subject of tons of articles out there, so you should be able to find some that cite actual research.

• Nielsen/Norman's articles are quite fair-minded, and based on actual research. Take a look at their article on carousels.
• See this old post for more references: Are carousels effective? (This post contains my favorite statement about carousels: "Use them to put content that users will ignore on your home page.")
• Here's a less diplomatic take on carousels: "Should I use a carousel?" ... "No!!!"