International Guidelines for Photosensitive Epilepsy: Gap Analysis and Recommendations

Abstract

People with photosensitive epilepsy may have seizures caused by flashing lights, patterns, and video sequences. Because of this, there is increasing interest among researchers, developers, and companies towards making content safer. There are five major guidelines (from the U.K., Japan, ISO, ITU, and W3C) to limit risk in different technology domains that have been created since the mid-1990s. All address similar risk factors, but they are not fully harmonized and can be confusing. Furthermore, there have been significant changes in technology since the guidelines were introduced. This paper compares and clarifies the guidelines, describes risk factors that have changed (such as the reduction of risk due to display technology), gaps in our knowledge, the coverage of new technology, and new characteristics (such as the duration and synchronicity of individual flash transitions) that may need to be accounted for. The authors suggest working values for new thresholds and propose updated guidelines.