Sliders are one of the most popular functional elements included with themes, or added via plugin. Despite their widespread use, the value added to a site by having a slider has been increasingly questioned lately, with some results showing that a slider actually hurts the site in terms of click-through rate, in addition to possible negative effects to the overall site performance.
As the lead developer of the upcoming version release of WooSlider, I’ve been head deep in sliders for the past 6 months. I’ll be using this experience in combination with research, articles and posts from others in the industry to look at what we’ve been doing wrong, and right, in implementing sliders on sites. We’ll see where sliders can be most effective, how they can be effective and what makes, or doesn’t make, a slider a valuable addition to a site.
We’ll also be taking a look at multiple free, paid, and bundled sliders to provide some insight at the wide variety of offerings, their performance, features, and ease-of-use in regards to creating a functional slider that will benefit the site and end-user alike.
A few of the resources that will be referenced:
http://shouldiuseacarousel.com/
http://krogsgard.com/2013/sliders-suck/
