Animated avatars play constantly without option to stop them (WCAG 2.1 / 2.2.2 violation)

[Mikaela]

Steps to reproduce

1. use a homeserver with animations enabled e.g. the-apothecary.club
2. join a room with someone who has animated avatar (e.g. #matrix:matrix.org)
3. see someone with an animated avatar say something

What happened?

The animation plays constantly and there is no way to stop it, so focus moves from the messages to it.

What did you expect?

Element either doesn't play it constantly or has an option to stop it. See suggestions at https://www.w3.org/WAI/WCAG21/Understanding/pause-stop-hide.html

Operating system

Fedora 34

Browser information

Microsoft Edge 93.0.961.11 (Virallinen koontiversio) beta (64-bittinen)

URL for webapp

develop.element.io

[Mikaela]

Originally reported at #15790 (comment) where a new issue was requested #15790 (comment).

See also:

• Stickers don't honour your 'do not autoplay gifs/videos' setting. #6534
• Link previews don't honour the autoplay gifs setting #7473
• Gif attachment autoplaying despite autoplay setting turned off #15790

[Mikaela]

I think this is missing the A11y label

[kittykat]

Hi @Mikaela do you mean that animations take up user focus or something else like keyboard/screenreader focus?

[Mikaela]

User focus, please see e.g. https://www.w3.org/WAI/WCAG21/Understanding/pause-stop-hide.html

[Palid]

I think we should definitely not play those animations if user has a reduced animations setting in the browser (or/and maybe some app settings too?) but I can't really figure out any good UX to start/stop those without breaking current user experience. Clicking on the avatar already does something, so that'd be a huge UX breaking change.

[janogarcia]

@Palid Maybe we could just disable autoplay on avatar GIFs if the user has prefers-reduced-motion enabled, and then optionally play the animation only on hover for those users? The hover action would work as the start/stop control.

[HarHarLinks]

this includes the use of avatars as blurred background to the room list.