I was in a meeting the other day with a client who really wants to optimize for mobile. They mentioned that sliders/carousels aren’t great for mobile. I don’t remember if I knew that already and just forgot or if it was new info, but I asked AI about it and requested sources. The answer is Yes, users really don’t interact with sliders/carousels much on mobile.

Users overwhelmingly only engage with the first slide. A study conducted on Notre Dame University websites showed user engagement rapidly declined for each feature, from 40% engagement for the first feature to 18% for the second.

An often-cited University of Notre Dame study found only 1% of visitors clicked on a slide at all, and 84% of those clicks were on the first slide — the rest were barely noticed.

So all that is to say, if you receive a task where the client prioritizes mobile UX optimization, disable the sliders/carousels for mobile. This applies to things like logo sliders and image sliders, but not hero sliders. It may be worth mentioning these stats to the PM so they can inform the client not to place important information in hero slides past the first one.

For that client’s site, I asked AI for help, and it provided CSS to disable the carousels rather than creating a whole new section for mobile.

Sources

• Nielsen Norman Group — Carousels on Mobile Devices, Basic Patterns for Mobile Navigation
• Baymard Institute — 10 UX Requirements for Homepage Carousels
• Smashing Magazine — Usability Guidelines For Better Carousels UX
• Yale Usability — Hero Images/Carousels
• UXPin — Responsive Design for Touch Devices
• Fuzzy Math — 6 UX Design Patterns to Reconsider for Mobile