Talking Websites

I often listen to music when I'm on my PC/surfing the internet, and so will a lot of other people I imagine.
Any sounds conflict with the music I'm listening to and are always annoying enough to make me close any site that doesn't allow me to quickly turn them off.

What do you have "voice" for?

One of my axioms is anything intrusive like audio, video or extreme DHTML effects should be optional.

There is nothing that will make me leave a web site faster than some techno track blaring - or one of those talking avatars trying to sell me something. (this is a shame because it is a site for FREE ad-free hosting with PHP + MySQL)

1. Audio or videos should always be be launched by the user

2. If DHTML effects are launched automatically, effects should be transient and user has controls to modify or kill the effects example

of course, sometimes the effects are the POINT of the web page, so rules 1 & 2 do not apply example - but user should always have control.

If you want to incorporate you voice into the site, why not give them the option of clicking to listen? If you only want to make your voice available, and not opt for video, then create audio files for the messages you want to relay...and give users the option to click on the file to listen. That way they know they are choosing to listen, and will probably feel better about the set-up.

IMO one of the best features missing from browsers is a MUTE button to mute all audio from sites until i shut off the mute. Nothing like hitting a site with audio the day after I stayed late jamming to music, and forgot the headphones are unplugged and the volume is cranked.

-Greg

People who turn off cookies (and usually as well JS) know they did and turn them on when required.

Cookies are used by a large proportion of sites now, especially with 3rd party things going on like ads (Google ads in particular).
I have no issues sending users to a 'sorry' page "You need cookies enabled to use this site".

Mmm . as an end-user I'm wondering how voicing increases the page loading time?

I find talking web sites quite annoying actually.

Are people getting "bored" with reading websites? An audio option would give the non-readers an opportunity to hear the site for as long as their attention span lets them. Actually, I find myself rejecting long winded sites. But, I certainly don't want to hear the sales pitch as soon as I enter the site.

One use of voice would be clicking to have someone read an article to you, or a story to you. Or, to listen to things like the Declaration of Independence from top to bottom.

I believe that many people tend to have voices on their site because others have told them that having them there is a great way to allow the customers to know what they are looking at without having to read so much.

The website voices tend to give out main points of the company or site and allows the visitors to understand with slightly more ease.

I must agree with the previous comments, in saying that such voices can be of an annoyance to the visitors.

Even whilst not listening to music; i tend to find that website voices can be a right pain to turn off.

My advice is that if you are going to have voices, use them for naration but make sure that the sound can be optional.

~ Mike

I would say that having an option is much better than having the audio come on automatically. I too listen to music when I am on my computer, and if there is a conflict of two sounds competing, I usually turn on off the site (close it) first before I adjust my music volume, it's just second nature that the extra noise is "interrupting" the music I have going already.

If you look at it from a navigation standpoint, when you have the audio come on automatically, you are giving less control of their experience on the site, and they might resent that, or simply go to another site where they do have that control.

It will be taking a lot of time to load your site if your using voice.. What do you guys think? I still have doubts though..