Graphic Attacc

The internet can be a dangerous place for people with photosensitive epilepsy and photophobic migraines. In this research project, our lab explores interventions in community awareness, technology development norms, design practices, and technology policy that could create an ecology of protections for vulnerable social media users.

Team Members

Rua, Chorong, Laila, Monaami, Atharva, Angel Lam, Sean Joo

Associated Funding

Unfunded

Calls for Participation

inactive

Associated Publications

• Rua Mae Williams, Chorong Park, Laila Sameer Dodhy, Monaami Pal, Atharva Anand Dnyanmote, Luchcha Angel Lam, and Sean Joo. 2024. “Not Only Annoying but Dangerous”: devising an ecology of protections for photosensitive social media users. In Proceedings of the 26th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (ASSETS ’24). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, Article 67, 1–14. Https://doi.org/10.1145/3663548.3675610
  • Photosensitivity among social media and internet users is an underappreciated risk factor for real physiological harm which can be actively or passively caused by designer and developer choices. Flashing graphics caused by GIFs, video, or even interface animations can trigger nausea, dizziness, migraines, and even seizures. Although there are some guidelines for protections for photosensitive users in W3C’s WCAG, these guidelines are often not met by developers, and are insufficient for robust user protection. In this multi-pronged exploratory research project, we work with photosensitive users, design students, and graphics experts to imagine a complete ecosystem of protections which layer vulnerable users at the community, platform, system, and hardware levels. In this paper, we argue for the urgency of reforms in device and internet infrastructure, development practices, design norms, and community behaviors. We then propose an ecosystem of protections which more holistically shield photosensitive users from ambient, accidental, and malicious exposure to flashing graphics.