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Allow disabling of motion or animation

accessibilityfordevelopers.com

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Re: Allow disabling of motion or animation

#61

Post by makeitdouble »

InCityDreams wrote: post #31
makeitdouble wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> that's your artistic vision > “look at my mad skills” I’m torn about this: there are enough unneeded and horrible animations that I completely understand this point of view of wanted to get rid of all of them. I also see that as throwing the baby with the bath water. There’s also fundamentally useful and informative animations to tell you something changed, what you’re supposed to do with an element or even what ty…

>when I got my new phone a few weeks ago Which phone? I'd like to know what not to purchase.

Pixel 6a, highly recommend. It has its flaws (some proper to the phone some coming from android) but it is still the best value you'll get if you're not chained to iOS and want a 'small' 6"ish phone. The disable animation thing is of my own doing, and using the animation scale factors instead is the better approach.

I researched a lot and actually tried to switch back to iOS for a day or two before buying. All phones currently come with pretty major drawbacks IMO, especially when living outside of the US. Some lack of polish was the trade-off I was willing to make.

Re: Allow disabling of motion or animation

#62

Post by tgsovlerkhgsel »

kaba0 wrote: post #20
greenbit wrote: post #2

Why does even the thought of 'disabling' animations have to be cast in the context of an accessibility issue? What about those of us that see no need of user interface elements that flollop about doing some kind of 'me Me ME!' dance, when we just want to get things done? I get it, if you're building a webpage maybe that's your artistic vision, and I'm specifically railing on OS animations, but the question still stan…

Well, the real world also “animates” everything, you can’t open your fridge instantly, nor can you grab your phone out of your pocket, nor are driving a car has any “instant” motions/happenings. These in-between states gives us well-needed information and are not artistic at all. Sure, they can be emulated badly, but for example iphone’s app switcher is imo a very natural implementation of how it should be done. Won’…

These quick transition animations aren't the ones this spec discusses.

The spec talks about "moving, blinking or scrolling information that (1) starts automatically, (2) lasts more than five seconds, and (3) is presented in parallel with other content"

It's relatively uncommon to encouter this as part of an app or actual legitimate content, but most sites that have ads would violate this spec. And I've noticed that I found those moving elements distracting enough that I just furiously closed a site and gave up on pursuing the information on it when I had the misfortune of encountering a news site on a PC without an ad blocker.

Re: Allow disabling of motion or animation

#63

Post by petee »

zagrebian wrote: post #25
Etheryte wrote: post #18

I seriously believe this is one of those issues where the browser should enforce the user's preference over what websites want. Rather than try and get every site worldwide to implement this consistently, having the browser disable animations based on the OS-wide configuration would be an easy win for everyone.

Not all animations are an issue. Disabling all animations would be too much. That’s why the website needs to decide for each animation if it should be affected by prefers-reduced-motion. The browser cannot make this decision¹. 1. Maybe in 100 years, when we have powerful AI that and reliably identify problematic animation.

Developers can't make that decision either - given the ability to override animations will end up with all the things still animated because "we know best"

A better option is to respect the user, and if your site really can't run without animation, then just show an error stating that...Which shouldn't be a problem considering how many websites refuse to work just because you are using a chromium alternative that is realistically supported but just isnt Chrome itself.

Re: Allow disabling of motion or animation

#64

Post by tgsovlerkhgsel »

Etheryte wrote: post #18

I seriously believe this is one of those issues where the browser should enforce the user's preference over what websites want. Rather than try and get every site worldwide to implement this consistently, having the browser disable animations based on the OS-wide configuration would be an easy win for everyone.

It's almost impossible to reliably distinguish animations required for a web site to work properly from animations and changes that can and should be disabled.

For example, try to distinguish (from "definitely should be blocked" to "definitely can't be blocked without breaking things"):

- An ad mascot hopping up or down telling you to click it

- A loading spinner spinning

- A progress bar

- Information you're waiting for being loaded once some process completes

You could disable all CSS animations and GIFs, but that will kill the loading spinner and risks that the next ad mascot will be written in JavaScript. And it will still not stop one of the biggest offenders in terms of blinking, ads that are being replaced by a new ad every 30 seconds.

Re: Allow disabling of motion or animation

#65

Post by [deleted] »

greenbit wrote: post #2

Why does even the thought of 'disabling' animations have to be cast in the context of an accessibility issue? What about those of us that see no need of user interface elements that flollop about doing some kind of 'me Me ME!' dance, when we just want to get things done? I get it, if you're building a webpage maybe that's your artistic vision, and I'm specifically railing on OS animations, but the question still stan…

[deleted]

Re: Allow disabling of motion or animation

#67

Post by Wowfunhappy »

rroot wrote: post #46

Also on this topic, please stop letting css/viewport dictating weather I see a menu on the left or not. I'd like to resize my browser window and put it at the side of my screen to use as a reference. Then I usually have to fight with zoom levels to get that menu to disappear! Even Mozilla is an offender with their otherwise splendid MDN: https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/Document_Ob...

I disagree! When my viewport is larger, I have space for niceties like always-visible menus. When my viewport is smaller, I need what little space is available to be entirely dedicated to content, even if it means open menus takes an extra click.

I want websites to manage this tradeoff for me when I zoom or resize my browser window.

Re: Allow disabling of motion or animation

#69

Post by Etheryte »

tgsovlerkhgsel wrote: post #64
Etheryte wrote: post #18

I seriously believe this is one of those issues where the browser should enforce the user's preference over what websites want. Rather than try and get every site worldwide to implement this consistently, having the browser disable animations based on the OS-wide configuration would be an easy win for everyone.

It's almost impossible to reliably distinguish animations required for a web site to work properly from animations and changes that can and should be disabled. For example, try to distinguish (from "definitely should be blocked" to "definitely can't be blocked without breaking things"): - An ad mascot hopping up or down telling you to click it - A loading spinner spinning - A progress bar - Information you're waiting…

I disagree completely. When implemented by the browser itself, it's straightforward to ensure all the relevant events are still fired without presenting the actual animation to the user. As for the list you brought up, a loading spinner spinning and the like is exactly what should be disabled. These are not interactions that are necessary for the site to function and they bring harm to some users.
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