‘Timing Adjustable’ requires that you provide user controls to turn off, adjust or extend time limits.
Introduction
Users with visual, motor or cognitive impairments may need more time than others to understand and use your website. Any time controls or limits can make using your website difficult for these users.
How to Pass ‘Timing Adjustable’
If content on your website uses a time limit:
- Give users an option to turn off the time limit before it begins (for example, a landing page before the time-limited page can display a message that shows users what to do); or
- Give users the option to adjust the time limit before it begins, over a range of at least ten times the default setting (you can do this with a landing page too); or
- Give users the option to extend the period at least twenty seconds before it expires. This must be a simple action like clicking a button and must be available to use at least ten times.
If your website has moving or animated text, users must be able to pause the movement.
If your website has a feature that is automatically updated (for example, with the latest football scores), you must allow users to delay the frequency of the updates by at least ten times the default setting.
Exceptions
- The time limit is due to real-time events, like bidding in an auction or a livestream
- The time limit is essential for your business. For example, a ticket sales website that saves a reservation for ten minutes because demand is high and giving users unlimited time would undermine the business process
- The time limit is more than 20 hours.
‘Timing Adjustable’ Tips
Take as much content outside of time limits as possible but consider your users’ security. For example, logging out of an account after a period of inactivity is a positive use of a time limit.
Make sure any user controls you provide are keyboard accessible.
The exceptions of the time limit being essential or over 20 hours are both removed at Level AAA in No Timing.
If you use a pop-up to give your users the option to extend a time limit, consider Interruptions.
See Also
- Pause, Stop Hide
- No Timing
- No Interruptions
- Re-authenticating
- Understanding Success Criterion 2.2.1 (W3C)
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When testing other’s websites, it isn’t always obvious that something has a time limit. It often only becomes obvious when leaving something alone and coming back to it later only to find it has timed out.
Unfortunately there is nothing in the guidelines about what would be a reasonable time limit, which I think would be very useful. For example it would be quite reasonable to set a shorter time limit for a login screen than for a full page contact form, but there is no objective means of deciding this.
Of course the most challenging thing to test is whether a time limit is more than twenty hours. I have never seen one but in theory it is possible. Where the figure of twenty hours comes from is anyone’s guess though. Who is to say that nineteen hours shouldn’t be enough for any time limit?
Thanks for getting involved Richard. You make a great point about testing time limits out – one of the reasons I didn’t include my usual “audit” section. Unless you know your developers have put a time limit on, it can be hard to spot them – especially if you’re used to your site and use it quickly.
This one is a great case for real user testing – especially targeting users with disabilities.
As for the hours, I’m sure I read a justification for the use of twenty somewhere – but I can’t find it now. A soon as you go past one hour, it’s an odd realm that you might as well just comply by letting users turn off the limits. That said, great opportunity for a user testing company to insist on real-time page checking – imagine the quote for twenty hours per page!