Recently, I was asked if adding a ‘presenter’ would be a good thing to have on a website.

For those of you that don’t know what a presenter is (and I must admit, I didn’t know that that’s what they were called!), here’s a link to the company selling them: www.mywebpresenters.com.

My personal opinion was that it wasn’t a good thing to have on your website and that it would actually hurt your visitors by having it there.  If you’re quite happily reading the text and then suddenly, a man wanders all over the area you’re trying to read and is talking while you’re trying to read, I’d image that that was quite off-putting!

Also, if you’re listening to music, as I often do, to suddenly have a man’s voice booming throughout your room – that too is quite off-putting.

The only good thing about this particular presenter is that you can pause and mute him – but I’d just recommend that you ditch him completely.  

The company above are claiming a 300% increase in ‘responses’, whatever that is. That’s a grand figure and I’d be interested to see the case studies, but my gut feel, which I trust, is that it’s not something that you want on your website.  

Like Flash movies, animated GIFs, sound and video – if you don’t have a solid reason for it being on your website, then don’t do it!