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Audio and video

Remove <blink>

• Rule: blink
• Severity: Serious
• WCAG level A

Why it matters

Blinking text cannot be stopped by the reader, distracts anyone with an attention or vestibular condition, and the element has been obsolete for years.

How to fix it

1. Delete the element and style the emphasis with CSS instead.
2. If something must draw attention, use colour and weight, not motion.

In markup

<blink>Sale ends today</blink>

<strong>Sale ends today</strong>

The requirement behind it

This rule is one way of failing the following WCAG 2.2 success criteria. The W3C, which writes the standard, explains each of them:

• 2.2.2 Pause, Stop, Hide (opens in new tab) — WCAG level A

Further reading

Deque University on blink (opens in new tab)

Deque maintains axe-core, the open-source engine our scanner runs. Their page documents the rule as the engine implements it.

Automated checks find failures a browser can prove. They cannot judge whether a caption is accurate, whether an alt text is useful, or whether a page can be operated end to end with a keyboard — those need a person.