Literally.
In a supreme bit of irony, the recently-announced logo for the 2012 Olympics has gotten itself into yet another major scuffle. The first was simply the initial reaction to the logo: people were irritated, confused, disgusted, or simply reduced to shaking their heads in wonderment at the incredible blockheads who perpetrated this weirdity. All at taxpayer expense.
Then, yesterday, an animation clip was pulled from the 2012 website after reports of people being hospitalized. The clip was triggering seizures in people with photosensitive epilepsy:
The offending footage was scrutinised by Professor Graham Harding, who “developed the test used to measure photo-sensitivity levels in TV material”. He told BBC London 94.9FM: “It fails the Harding FPA machine test which is the machine the television industry uses to test images. And so it does not comply with Ofcom guidelines and is in contravention of them.“
UK charity Epilepsy Action said the images “could affect the 23,000 people in the UK who have photosensitive epilepsy” and that it had received reports they had “even triggered breakthrough seizures where people have a relapse after being seizure-free for a long time”.
full article text at The Register
This is even more ironic when you consider that this logo is for both the Olympics and the Paralympics — the latter being competitive games for athletes with disabilities. See? Not only is accessibility important, it’s now easier to screw up. Or more properly, with more people creating audiovisual content, there are more people who should take accessibility into account…and yet, they don’t. (Probably because pointy-haired bosses are still convinced that they ‘shouldn’t bother to adjust [their] web site for something that will only affect about 5% of the total population’. That was another award-winning Line of Intense Stupidity which I received from a former boss.)
Keywords: | irony | epilepsy | altered states | accessibility |
Posted by Laughing Muse • 679 views • Share this link • Newer • Older
Click here to join