WCAG 2.1 Article 2.3.1

Hey everybody. Josh here with Online ADA, bringing you another video from the WCAG accessibility guidelines. In this video we’re covering 2.3.1, Three Flashes or Below Threshold. This is a level A requirement. This is a very short and sweet description, contrary to my last two videos, and there is some overlap with the previous article as well. So, this video is going to give you some more specifics about, specifically, the flashing aspect of it. So let’s jump into that description. 

Web pages do not contain anything that flashes more than three times in any one second period. Or the flashes below the general flash and red flash thresholds. 

Now, there is a lot of science and math that goes behind determining what that threshold is. It’s a lot more content than we’re gonna provide here in this video. It is a literal math formula that you can research in Google. I was able to find some information about it by specifically searching for ‘general flash and red flash thresholds’. 

The basic takeaway from this article is that don’t have flashing content on your site. It’s not even worth the risk. Flashing content can be something like an animation of, maybe, explosions or machine gun fire and the muzzle flash is is just going rapidly. You don’t wanna have that content on your site. It’s not a good idea. There is a maximum threshold that would technically be okay if your flashing area was a certain size of the screen. But there is a giant formula that calculates what that is. So it’s probably just not a good idea to even have it on your website at all. 

There are tools available online that you can find that will test your site and determine if you have the flashing threshold. It’s a good idea to look into those if you are concerned about anything that maybe on your site. But the basic take away from this article is you don’t wanna put flash content on your site. Not a good idea. You don’t want to risk inducing seizures in your users. So, that’s all there is. 

Thanks for joining me this video and I’ll see you the next video.