By Michael Herring, Interface Designer
In late March, some malicious internet users attacked an Epilepsy Foundation forum. This forum is aimed at helping people affected by epilepsy, a condition that can cause seizures and headaches when the brain is presented with a number of brief, strong surges of electrical activity; such as flashing lights and colors.
This was possibly the first attack on a Web site that caused actual physical suffering, according to the news article on Wired.com.
By automating the posting of many animated and quickly-flashing image files, this attack caused migraine headaches, seizures, and temporary paralysis for epileptic users of the site.
About 50 million people in the world suffer from some form of epilepsy, three percent of whom are photosensitive. So, if you do the math, about 1.5 million people in the world suffer from the type of epilepsy that quickly-flashing images could have a hurtful affect upon.
The users of this epilepsy support Web site were attacked viciously through purposefully inaccessible techniques. Web accessibility can be a very subtle art, but the outcome of not paying attention to accessibility can be very dramatic.
Please keep in mind the possibility of physically hurting some of your Web site’s potential users when creating animated graphics.
