CSS prefers-reduced-motion Media Query
When I started in the web development industry, media queries were limited -- screen and print were the two media queries I was most often using. More than a decade later, media queries have advanced to various screen units, feature checking, and even color scheme preference. I've been so happy to see CSS evolve beyond incredibly generic settings.
One of the CSS media queries I've recently discovered is prefers-reduced-motion, a media query for users sensitive to excessive motion.
Let's use prefers-reduced-motion to show motion to all users but none to sensitive users:
.animation {
animation: vibrate 0.2s;
}
@media (prefers-reduced-motion: reduce) {
.animation {
animation: none;
}
}
The example above illustrates how we can cater to sensitive users by not animating elements for those who have said they don't want them.
It's amazing how media queries like this can really show users that you care. Sure, we love the fancy razzle-dazzle but not everyone can handle that motion.
![Creating Scrolling Parallax Effects with CSS]()
Introduction
For quite a long time now websites with the so called "parallax" effect have been really popular.
In case you have not heard of this effect, it basically includes different layers of images that are moving in different directions or with different speed. This leads to a...
![39 Shirts – Leaving Mozilla]()
In 2001 I had just graduated from a small town high school and headed off to a small town college. I found myself in the quaint computer lab where the substandard computers featured two browsers: Internet Explorer and Mozilla. It was this lab where I fell...
![CSS Fixed Positioning]()
When you want to keep an element in the same spot in the viewport no matter where on the page the user is, CSS's fixed-positioning functionality is what you need.
The CSS
Above we set our element 2% from both the top and right hand side of the...
![JavaScript Copy to Clipboard]()
"Copy to clipboard" functionality is something we all use dozens of times daily but the client side API around it has always been lacking; some older APIs and browser implementations required a scary "are you sure?"-style dialog before the content would be copied to clipboard -- not great for...
Hey David!
As someone that has suffered vestibular disorders before, prefers-reduced-motion is a godsend.
A somewhat better, broader implementation is using the a really short
animation-durationinstead ofanimation: none, as it’s fairly common to implement animations in such a way that starts off screen or otherwise invisible, which could mean the elements don’t show up at all if usinganimation: none. Iteration count will prevent us from getting infinite loops.Same thing can be achieved for transitions.
@media screen and (prefers-reduced-motion: reduce){ * { animation-duration: 0.001ms !important; animation-iteration-count: 1 !important; transition-duration: 0.001ms !important; } }