Animations
Page contents
User controls
Blinking or scrolling objects tend to distract from the text content on the page. When implemented poorly they can trigger headaches, nausea or even seizures for some people.
Ensure people can pause, stop or hide any animated item which scrolls, blinks or moves for at least five seconds
- Applies to obvious things like looping carousels, slideshows and news feeds, and to animated backgrounds and illustrations.
- Not applicable to items in a state of loading or preloading.
- Animated GIFs can become pixelated and distorted with changes in screen size and are best avoided.
We all process information at different speeds; for some people the item they were interested in may have disappeared too quickly.
Flashing content
Avoid anything that flashes more than three times in one second
This amount of flashing can cause problems for people with epilepsy or other physical reactions triggered by flashing.
Text alternatives
Essential animations must be accompanied by static alternatives
Text with still images can also help people with neurodivergence to process animations.
Animations with sound as a crucial part of the content need synchronised captions and/or a text transcript. See the section on audio and video content.