Pause, stop or hide
Enabling pause, stop or hide
Content that moves, blinks, scrolls or auto-updates can interrupt screen readers. It can also make it difficult for certain groups to interact with the rest of the web page including people with low literacy, reading and intellectual disabilities and people with attention deficit disorder.
- For any moving, blinking and scrolling information that starts automatically, lasts more than five seconds, and is presented in parallel with other content, provide the user a way to pause, stop or hide it. Examples include motion pictures, media, animations and real-time games and scrolling stock tickers.
- For auto-updating information, provide a way for the user to pause, stop or hide the content. Or, provide a way for the user to control the frequency of the update. Examples of auto-updating information include time-based weather information, news, or stock price updates.
A keyboard accessible “pause button” or other mechanisms can be used to pause the content.
Good example
A Web page contains a link labeled "How to tie a knot" which links to an animation. Text immediately preceding the link informs the user that pressing the spacebar will pause the animation and restart it again. A pause button is visible in the lower right-hand corner of the animation.
Related WCAG resources
Related WCAG resources
Success criteria
Techniques
- G4: Allowing the content to be paused and restarted from where it was paused
- SCR33: Using script to scroll content, and providing a mechanism to pause it
- G11: Creating content that blinks for less than 5 seconds
- G187: Using a technology to include blinking content that can be turned off via the user agent
- G152: Setting animated gif images to stop blinking after n cycles (within 5 seconds)
- SCR22: Using scripts to control blinking and stop it in five seconds or less
- G186: Using a control in the Web page that stops moving, blinking, or auto-updating content
- G191: Providing a link, button, or other mechanism that reloads the page without any blinking content