Weekly Links Roundup – Video Backgrounds, Sliders, Visual Hierarchy, Online Security Scanners

The top website and marketing links of the week.

Take this as you will… I don’t agree that there is *never* a good case for using a video background, but some of the arguments against are compelling, especially the loading time issue, and how dumb your site will look if you’re using a video hosted somewhere else and it doesn’t load.

To follow up, I also disagree that sliders always suck. There is sometimes a place for them, it depends on the business and the content, when a hero image won’t get the job done. But, again, take it as you will…

More design things… recently I had a project where the home page was a flat mess – it was completely unclear what the user was to do once arriving on the site. I had to explain and demonstrate how hierarchy works to draw attention to the more important stuff and put the less important stuff in a less prominent position. Everything can’t be the ‘most important.’ Learn more about visual hierarchy in web design.

Finally – did you know you can scan your WordPress website remotely and check for security issues and malware? Learn about 7 free online tools for scanning your site.