WordPress Animation Accessibility: Making Your Site WCAG Compliant

Animation accessibility isn’t optional—it’s essential for WCAG compliance and inclusive design. Approximately 35% of users experience motion sensitivity, vestibular disorders, or prefer reduced motion for various reasons.

This guide teaches you to create WordPress animations that everyone can enjoy, including users with disabilities, while maintaining WCAG 2.1 AA compliance.

Understanding Motion Accessibility

Vestibular disorders affect balance and spatial orientation. Animations can trigger: dizziness, nausea, headaches, disorientation, and loss of balance.

prefers-reduced-motion is a CSS media query detecting user preference for minimal animation.

WCAG Success Criteria

2.2.2 Pause, Stop, Hide (Level A): Users must control moving content 2.3.1 Three Flashes (Level A): No content flashes more than 3 times/second 2.3.3 Animation from Interactions (Level AAA): Disable non-essential animations

Implementing prefers-reduced-motion

CSS implementation:

/* Default animations */
.animate {
	animation: fadeUp 0.6s ease;
}

/* Respect user preference */
@media (prefers-reduced-motion: reduce) {
	.animate {
		animation: none;
		transition: none;
	}
}

JavaScript detection:

const prefersReducedMotion = window.matchMedia("(prefers-reduced-motion: reduce)").matches;

if (!prefersReducedMotion) {
	// Initialize animations
}

Accessible Animation Guidelines

DO: Use subtle animations (opacity, small transforms), keep durations under 500ms, provide skip/pause options, respect prefers-reduced-motion, test with screen readers

DON’T: Animate rapidly (>3 times/sec), use large movements, create infinite loops without controls, block content access, rely solely on animation for information

WordPress Implementation

Block Editor Animations respects prefers-reduced-motion automatically, provides accessibility-tested presets, includes pause controls, supports keyboard navigation, and works with screen readers.

Testing Accessibility

Enable reduced motion (macOS: System Preferences → Accessibility → Display → Reduce motion; Windows: Settings → Ease of Access → Display → Show animations)

Test with screen readers (NVDA, JAWS, VoiceOver), verify keyboard navigation, use automated tools (axe DevTools, WAVE), and conduct user testing with people with disabilities.

Conclusion

Accessible animations require: prefers-reduced-motion support, WCAG 2.1 AA compliance, subtle, purposeful motion, user controls (pause/skip), thorough testing.

Block Editor Animations prioritizes accessibility.

Visit our support page for questions!