Sliding pictures. a.k.a. carousels, at the top of website home pages are very popular today, especially for retail websites.

Personally, they drive me crazy. That’s because I get interested in the initial picture shown and then it changes. Hey, where’d my picture go?

Or after looking at the picture, I start to scan the rest of the page to see if this website can help me. Suddenly the picture changes and distracts me from what I was looking for and I have to start all over.

When you arrive on a business website, you’re actively engaged in looking for something. You are not looking for a moving target.

There’s another important reason why sliding pictures are probably not the best choice for your home page: Your unique selling proposition is lost. Your web copywriter should have been helping you develop your unique selling proposition. Are you the largest seller of barstools within 50 miles? Do you sell mattresses for the lowest price in your area? Are you the exclusive reseller of a certain brand? If so, then you need that headline with an image that supports that.

Sometimes I see sliding pictures with different headlines in each slide! What a headache. It’s just too much to process for our slow overworked brains.

But, you might say, we must show different products and other selling points on our home page. Of course, you must. But a good graphic designer can do that the old fashioned way—using still pictures.

The only reason I can think of to use sliding pictures for most commercial sites is simply to look “with it.” If that’s your reason, then please have them move nice and slow.

Easy Web Tip #159: Sliding pictures in banners are very popular right now. Just my opinion, but I think they’ll be an example of what not to do in a few years.