450958 - was told 3 would fix the flashing text ff displays which is not only annoying, an epilepic viewer stated that could trigger seizures

Status: RESOLVED INVALID

(Firefox :: General, defect)

Description

[kathy]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; PPC Mac OS X 10.4; en-US; rv:1.9.0.1) Gecko/2008070206 Firefox/3.0.1
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; PPC Mac OS X 10.4; en-US; rv:1.9.0.1) Gecko/2008070206 Firefox/3.0.1

was recently notified by a customer who obviously used a ff browser to view my site. i know i have issues with some pages but the home and almost all main pages pass coding inspection. read on the net that 3.0 would be addressing/fixing this issue and it did not - i truly don't want to try hundreds of workarounds - i think you need to address this issue promptly as this is a very important concern that could affect the lives of those who may come across sites like mine.

Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1. just key in the web address http://www.prom-garters.com using ff browser
2.
3.
Actual Results:  
most text flashes, not sure why only some of it does i have used a dreamweaver template

Expected Results:  
would like to see this issue fixed if you intend to expand your browser usability i for now will just recommend they not use firefox as a browser which is not what you want all those having this issue to do, i am sure.

Comment 1

[Steve England [:stevee]]

In your http://www.prom-garters.com/promgarters.css file you have 	text-decoration: blink; set for .bodytext

I would guess that this is what is causing the flashing.

Also, I seriously doubt a 1hz flash would cause a seizure for people who experience such things.

Comment 2

[kathy]

I am embarressed and stand corrected. I never looked at the css file as the site worked perfectly fine in other browers such as Safari and Internet Explorer (nothing blinked or flashed). I would like to direct you to a link that does state that flashing or flickering lights or images can cause a seizure and more...

Web design

As with video games, rapidly changing images or highly regular patterns such as flashing banner ads or irregular fonts can trigger seizures in people with photosensitive epilepsy. Two sets of guidelines exist to help web designers produce content that is safe for people with photosensitive epilepsy:

    * The World Wide Web Consortium have produced Web Content Accessibility Guidelines. Version 1, produced in 1999, suggest designers allow users to control flickering or avoid causing the screen to flicker at all [1].

    * In the U.S., websites provided by federal agencies are governed by section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act. This says that pages shall be designed to avoid causing the screen to flicker with a frequency greater than 2 Hz and less than 55 Hz.[2]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photosensitive_epilepsy

I have no clue of the difference of 1hz and 2hz but it does exist and seizures are not the only result.

Comment 3

[Steve England [:stevee]]

1Hz means once a second, 2Hz means twice a second. I don't think the blinking was twice a second, but anyway, you have fixed the problem and that is the important thing!

We use RESOLVED FIXED for when a patch has fixed a bug, so in this case I am resolving this bug as INVALID as it wasn't a bug in firefox.

Thanks for taking time to file a bug.

Comment 4

[Jo Hermans]

Note the blinking is done in an save way : a 1 Hz duty cycle with the text visible for 3/4 of each cycle, which is outside the dangerous range.

For the Section 1194.22 compliance statement, see <http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/vpat-3.html> section K.

Comment 5

[MarjaE]

"a 1 Hz duty cycle with the text visible for 3/4 of each cycle, which is outside the dangerous range."

I haven't examined the site, but 1 Hz can trigger migraines and visual distortions, even if it can't trigger seizures.