Animated GIFs and accessibility guidelines

Guideline 7 at
http://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG10/
says
"Ensure that moving, blinking, scrolling, or auto-updating objects or pages
may be paused or stopped."
and
"Until user agents allow users to freeze moving content, avoid movement in
pages."

How does this apply to animated GIFs?

Does it apply, for example, to the animated sponsorship ads at, for example,
http://www.cast.org/bobby/

I understood that movement on screens could cause screen readers to lose
their focus.  Does this happen with animated GIFs?  If so, is this a
concern?

Also, while looking at the Bobby page, the alt text for the GIF simply says
"Scrolling list of sponsors, without mentioning their names (IBM, Microsoft,
etc.).  Again does this conform to the WAI guidelines?

Like Nick, I don't want to pick on the Bobby site or the CAST staff, but it
is a Web site that those with interests in accessibility will look at.

Thanks

Brian (hoping this isn't an FAQ)

--------------------------------------------------------------
Brian Kelly
UKOLN
University of Bath
BATH
BA2 7AY
Email: B.Kelly@ukoln.ac.uk
Phone: (+44) 1225 323943

Received on Thursday, 15 February 2001 04:08:16 UTC