[Usability]Re: All animations should be disableable

[Calum Benson <calum benson sun com>]

On Thu, 2002-10-17 at 23:23, MArk Finlay wrote:

> Well i was talking about both - but in a bigger picture kinda way i
> think it should be policy or in the HIG or something to have all
> animations optional.

It's in the accessibility guide
(http://developer.gnome.org/projects/gap/guide/gad/):

Animation

Used sparingly, animation can be useful for drawing attention to
important information in your application-- and it can look cool, too.
However, it can be problematic for some users, so make sure they can
turn it off.

    * Don't use flashing or blinking elements having a frequency greater
than 2 Hz and lower than 55 Hz. This includes text as well as any
graphical objects. Anything in this frequency range may cause particular
problems for users susceptible to visually-induced seizures. Note that
there is no "safe" frequency, though. If flashing is essential, you
should use the system's cursor blink frequency (which should itself be
customisable), or allow users to configure the frequency themselves.

    * Don't flash or blink large areas of the screen. Small areas are
less likely to trigger seizures in those susceptible to them.

    * Make all animations optional. The animated information should be
available in at least one non-animated format, at the user's request.

For some reason we seem to have missed out these guidelines in the HIG,
though, although it did make it into the checklist at the back:
http://developer.gnome.org/projects/gup/hig/draft_hig/reality-checks.html#id2857245

I have to admit it's not immediately clear to me whether these
guidelines applies to animations such as the metacity 'minimize'
animation, or just to continuous or non-redundant animations.  I guess
it should probably be both, though.

Cheeri,
Calum.

-- 
CALUM BENSON, Usability Engineer       Sun Microsystems Ireland
mailto:calum benson sun com            GNOME Desktop Group
http://ie.sun.com                      +353 1 819 9771

Any opinions are personal and not necessarily those of Sun Microsystems