Is it better to display featured products as a slideshow or as a list of products

Question

I have here two wireframes for the homepage of an e-commerce website. The site has only 5 products so far but will have more so the design needs to allow for scaling.

I'm wondering which of these two wireframes would be more suitable.

UPDATE: People who want to answer this question should probably also know of this thread about sliders: Are carousels effective?

The first is a more classical layout including a product slideshow at the top.

^{download bmml source – Wireframes created with Balsamiq Mockups}

The second wireframe features an intro-text first followed by a list of products, each product occupies the full width of the layout.

^{download bmml source}

Answer 1

If you want to show off products, it is better to show it as a list. Some reasons why the list is a better choice than a carousel:

• If user wants to compare products, it is easier (compared to carousel) to scroll up and down and see what the differences are. They are controlling the scroll and not the script moving the image.

• If a user wants to go through your entire products range, it is far easier to scroll through the list at their own pace rather than messing around with the carousel player.

• You will be able to fit more content (for the most part) in a listed page than on a carousel (bigger carousels are possible, but can be slower and not smooth in interaction)

• You mentioned that the client will be increasing their product range in the future. Right now, with 5 products carousel might be possible. But, with 10-15 or more products it will be a complete nightmare. It is better to design an effective list module than a carousel which cannot be expanded upon in the future.

Answer 2

Slideshows are nice to have on a homepage. It sets a mood, they're eye catching and if you can't decide on a single hero image you can have 5.

They're a poor method of delivering information however and best used only to give a taste of what's on offer. Just like powerpoint slideshows they're there to support the communication, not to be it. If you want to give an overview of the 5 products it's better to put them in a list. That would allow me as a visitor to browse them at my own pace, go from 1 to 5 with just a flick of the scrollwheel instead of having to deal with the controls (and animations) of the slideshow.

So, it won't be a bad idea to have a slideshow of your products on the homepage like layout 1, but then I'd expect to have a link to an overview page that looks more like layout 2. You can have both, yay!

If your list of products grows so much that it becomes impractical to list them all as in layout 2, opt for a more compact version of that layout or you could split them up in categories.

Answer 3

Nielsen Norman Group published an article this year on auto-forwarding carousels, how they can reduce visibility and annoy users. I believe it would be worth reading in your case, because if you're going to put important information in a carousel, you will want to pay attention to details such as auto-forwarding.

Answer 4

There is already an excellent thread on the effectiveness of carousels.

In my experience I wouldn't recommend their use to display a products list; many users simply won't click them or be patient enough to look at them for more than a couple of seconds.