Multimedia and usability on the Web

Multimedia content on the Web is plagued by usability problems. I created this simple prototype for the company I work for, trying to demonstrate that browser plugins are not the way to go. The most seamless user experience is not the embedded (Windows) media player.

Let people choose or at least let the OS choose. Many users are able to configure a browser in order to use their favorite player. Operating systems provide carefully chosen defaults for the majority of people who are unable to tweak their system, a website can’t do better than that.

There’s no pragmatical or economical explanation for the crippled presentation of multimedia content, it’s just due to plain ignorance. Marketing people are scared of letting people directly access the streams because of advertising. Many had the brilliant idea to put banners aside the embedded player. Ads can be served much more nicely in the stream without even recurring to client-side scripting: ASX e RAM files are basically playlists, just put the ad in there. Then again this is almost always a problem due to the very advertising systems that were supposed to ease the work of marketers.

UPDATE: the prototype eventually became a real site called Kataweb Multimedia. Obviously the marketing people forced us to drop the use-your-own-player approach. Nevertheless I’m really happy since this is the first Kataweb site and probably the first site in any italian portal that validates. Wow! I’m turning into a web designer.