At 08:52 AM 10/18/04 -0400, dhbailey wrote:
>If you are teaching how to integrate music and sound with websites,
>please teach them:
>2) have a clearly visible, easy to locate, clickable OFF butto for those
>of us who hate web-sites that force their music on us;
>3) program any music inclusion so that visitors don't have to download
>any special plug-ins to hear the music -- nothing makes me leave a
>website faster than being told that I have to download something else to
>fully enjoy the web-site.
There is, of course, a huge course in proper, polite, and effective use of
web media. But David brings up some important points that I'd like to expand.
Regarding #2: *Never* autoplay media files or pop up windows with them.
This breaks accessibility badly, so anyone browsing with speech output will
be interrupted and (because of the new window) lost in navigation. And I'll
add here that one should use standard tags for media links; Javascript and
Flash tags are not cross-browser cross-operating system compatible, and
security risks besides (until recently, Flash was not accessible, either).
A metafile ('streaming') link and a download link for dialup users are
really important if you don't want to lost possible auditions of music from
dialup users as well as those using palmtops and slower networks.
Regarding #3: Plugins are tricky. It used to be that browsers and operating
systems didn't have any plugins shipped with them -- no Midi, no AVI, no
Quicktime, no MP3, etc. Now they do have lots of media players installed,
but the occasional plugin is still needed for specialized items. There's
Scorch for Sibelius, for example, and with the media wars, some don't ship
with RealAudio. Using standard file types will always help make a site useful.
The key for music sites especially is never to force content on the
visitor, and never to use supposedly clever methods (scripts, Flash, etc.)
where standard methods are the most accessible. If you can do something on
the server (vs. in the browser), that's the way to go. Make it easy and
fast for the site visitor.
Dennis
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