Avoid flashing web content

Applicable Role(s): Content Creator, Developer

Overview

Content that flashes repeatedly can be harmful to people with photo-sensitivity or seizure disorders like epilepsy. Flashing content can lead to reactions like vomiting and nausea, and trigger seizures if the flashes are severe enough.

Best Practices

  • Ideally pages should not contain flashing content at all. This is the most inclusive strategy, and pages that contain content that flashes more than three times a second automatically fail against the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.1. Blinking (an animation indicating two different states) is allowed providing there is a way to pause the blinking.
  • If flashing content is required for the context of a page, a warning about the content and a pause mechanism on the flashing content must be provided.

Pattern Examples

Note about Examples

We won't show examples on this site due to flashing content failing WCAG 2.1; however, there are other sites that have flashing content examples if you'd like to see them. Please refer to these examples at your own discretion and safety: