When ensuring that your website is accessible for visitors with disabilities, one aspect you might not consider is the presence of animations. While animations may seem innocent and hidden for most people, they can pose serious concerns for specific individuals, particularly those with learning difficulties or individuals who experience photosensitive epilepsy. Therefore, if you are serious about making your website accessible to all users, it is essential to consider the impact that animations could have.
How Animations Can Cause Difficulties
For most people, animations cause no difficulties and can enhance their browsing experience. Animations can help convey a message and encourage engagement with a website. However, for some individuals, these animations can be a source of distress for various reasons. Understanding this is crucial if you want your website to be truly accessible for all users, whether they enjoy animated content or whether such content might pose a risk.
So, how can animations cause a problem? For most people, animations do not cause any issues, but for individuals with photosensitive epilepsy, flashing or flickering images can trigger a seizure, which can be life-threatening. Therefore, it’s vital to address this potential risk.
Epileptic Seizures Due to Animated Images
For individuals whose seizures are triggered by flashing and flickering images, these are often tonic-clonic seizures (the most common type), though other types of seizures can also occur. Regardless of the kind, these seizures can be extremely dangerous for the individual experiencing them, which is why it’s critical to minimize the risk of exposure to such triggers on your website.
According to the Epilepsy Society, as many as 1 in 100 people may have photosensitive epilepsy. This underscores the importance of accommodating these visitors when designing or updating your website.
How No Animation Tools Can Help
Your website can benefit from implementing no animation tools to enhance user experience in several ways. For some visitors, animations are annoying or distracting. For others, particularly those with slow internet connections, animations may slow their browsing experience. The ability to turn off animations could improve the functionality of your website for these users.
However, for individuals with epilepsy, the ability to turn off animations could be a matter of life or death. Offering this option is not just a usability enhancement—it’s a safety measure. Prioritizing this feature is essential for any website developer who seeks to make their site accessible to all. For more information on how to implement no-animation tools on your website, contact our team at Pluro today.
