For persons with disabilities like sensory processing disorder, misokinesia, autism, ADHD, migraines or epilepsy (and others), certain features on operating system and app UIs can be harmful.
This petition calls for more accessibility in UI/UX and OS design.
These harms can include seizures, dizziness, fight/flight reactions, disorientations, vestibular problems, and other neurodivergent and physical sensations.
“Reduced Motion” has been offered as a feature for accessibility for some time, but this feature is not enough for those suffering from impact that comes from any motion. Reduced motion is a tiny bandaid that only masks some of the problems on mobile and desktop devices.
This can also be particularly frustrating when developers think that motion is only noxious when it applies to automatic features. This is not true! Hover effects and other “indicators” (blinking cursors, icons, etc) are also capable of reducing accessibility. While not motion based, UI noises that cannot be disabled system wide are similarly important to offer a disable option for disability.
Some of the following are areas that should be considered when moving from reduced motion to no motion:
- Blinking cursors when typing
- GIFS/videos (autoplay)
- parallax effects
- animated/changing icons on hover
- Spinning elements either on hover or not
- Moving elements like cogwheels
- Overly contrasted hover effects such as large zooms, different colors, etc
Operating systems like Windows luckily provide many of these options, even going as far as allowing blinking cursors to be turned off. It is the hope of those advocating for these changes that other developers follow suit. While this petition is in general aimed at all designers/developers that interact with the public, we are particularly focused on large-scale companies that provide their service to a number of persons who may be impacted by these accessibility concerns. In particular, Android, IOS, Apple, Windows, Nintendo (has very limited accessibility), would serve from implementing No Motion accessibility options.
