Give Users Control over Presentations and Other Automatic Elements

Requirement: Any automatic presentation should feature a means of skipping or stopping the presentation.

This requirement is not specifically incorporated into Section 508 or the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines, but many consider it implied in the requirements to give sufficient alert and response time to timed events.

There are many examples of sites that do not avoid this presentation pitfall. They are reminiscent of that friend or family member who can't answer a question directly. You ask them what the weather is like and you get a diatribe about the differences between sleet and freezing rain.

Someone clicks on a link and they get a two-minute introduction when all they want is your address on your home page.

You should always provide an easy means of skipping or stopping presentations. If a presentation, such as a tutorial, is designed to give essential information, you should make it easy for people to control the pace of the presentation. Consider rather than using one long presentation, using several short ones. This allows a user to skip certain parts of the tutorial but replay the one or two that are most important for him or her.

As always, remember to provide presentation content in an accessible manner by using text descriptions for any graphics or audio.