Clients still ask for image sliders, but I’m not convinced they convert. Some say they hurt UX. What’s your current stance—use them or ditch them? Any data to back it up?
I’m not sure how you would get data to disprove the hypothesis without doing A-B testing on a specific site, and then that result is only good for that site.
My opinion on them is “it depends on if it makes sense for the site”.
Slider effectiveness depends entirely on your audience and industry. For older users in finance or real estate, sliders with clear CTA can perform 15-20% better than static images.
It’s important to base these decisions on audience preferences rather than personal taste. While outdated elements can certainly be removed, anything that’s actively generating revenue should be changed gradually. Abrupt changes to elements that your specific audience responds well to can hurt conversion rates, even if those elements seem outdated.
I totally agree that it all depends on the audience. For example, we do not have a carousel on our site and it is not expected simply because no one needs it, however, if we are talking about a site with doors that the user is going to buy, then there should definitely be a carousel there so that he better understands what that door looks like. However, again, if the audience does not have a request or rather a wish to use the carousel, but the customer does, is it worth trying to convince him?
If the customer is asking for a carousel, then they surely have a reason, and that reason should be fairly obvious from the ask (something like “We’ve got 20 products we want to show but not take up the whole page”). If you’re going to try and convince them, come prepared with suggestions for alternatives.
So yes, but some customers (from personal experience, not on behalf of the company) ask for it simply because they think it’s modern and it will look better this way, although in fact they have 5 products that they will place there