This was submitted by a user who wishes to remain anonymous

Eye strain is something everyone experiences at some point, like when the sun is too bright or when they're tired and their eyes become more sensitive to light, but for people with neurological conditions like epilepsy and migraines, and visually impaired people whose eyes have to work harder to process what they're seeing, it can be more than that.

Eye strain can cause seizures, migraines, a feeling like an icepick in the eyes or temple, vertigo (a feeling of falling or spinning), dizziness, vision changes like blurriness or smearing, fatigue or "sand" in the eyes, nausea, vomiting, nystagmus (rapid involuntary movement of the eyes, usually jerking or shaking, which can be painful), and various eye floaters (swarming blue lights, squiggles, white flashes of light that can either take up the whole field of vision or only be in certain spots, black spots, etc).

The symptoms it causes can also depend on the type of eye strain, and everyone is different. Some people avoid it, some people are indifferent, some people seek it out, and some people only avoid certain triggers. Either way, you should be considerate of people who don't want to experience distressing physical symptoms.

How does neurological disability cause eye strain?

Neurological refers to the brain, spine, muscles, and nerves. You have nerves and muscles in and around your eyes. The information in the nervous system is distributed like this: brain -> (spine ->) nerves -> muscles. Therefore disability, illness, or injury to any of these things can involve the eyes.

How does visual impairment cause eye strain?

Everything is light. Colors are light. Many blind and visually impaired people are sensitive to light.

Is eye strain only flashing and bright colors?

No.

For many different eye conditions, the eyes need to work harder to process what they're seeing. If a color is too dark compared to the lineart, or the lighting is too dim or too dark, a visually impaired person may not be able to see the character. Chromatic aberration can cause eye strain and nystagmus because the eyes have to focus, and people with certain conditions may not be able to focus their eyes.

So I have to tag all of these now? I'm being forced to tag all of these or avoid putting them into my art entirely?

No. You can do what you want.

This list is just a list of things you can tag, if you want to, and a list of examples of what you can try to avoid putting into your art, if you want to.
These are also not substitutions for the eyestrain tag. It is important to tag "eyestrain" even if you don't tag specific triggers. These are just suggestions about how you can do that, if you want to.

This list is a suggestion, not a command.

Potential seizure triggers:

Why this is so important: Seizures can cause brain damage and death but are also not fun to experience.

• Flashing. Photosensitive people say it is better to tag all flashing and not just flashing at a particular speed because not every photosensitive person is the same.
• Strobing (think flashing concert or rave lights)
• Chromatic aberration (even still images can cause seizures for some people. chromatic aberration is distortion. usually people use it in lineart, and the colors are typically red, green, blue, cyan, and hot pink, though chromatic aberration can be any color. think 3d effect)
• Glitch (both moving and still)
• Moving fire effects (flashing)
• Sunlight on moving water (flashing)

Colors:

Pure white is the number 1 eye strain trigger.
Any bright colors. Every single one of these is an ms paint default, but you can also think of scenecore levels of brightness. Eye burning neons.

• Bright blue
• Cyan
• Bright green
• Bright red
• Bright yellow
• Bright pink (Not pastel. Pastels can be a problem too if they're extremely faded, though)
• Hot pink
• Neon purple

Effects

• Static filter. Sometimes isolated areas of static as well. If it's only eyes that's probably fine. Very low opacity noise is also probably fine.
• Halftone on the whole piece; sometimes isolated areas as well. It also depends on the type of halftone used. It's best to just tag all halftone because scrolling past it can make it move, which can cause nystagmus.
• Optical illusions because they make the eyes have to work harder. The ones being referred to here are the ones that make it look like shining sun rays, or moving ocean waves; ones that simulate movement, not the skull or the woman with the mirror.
• CRT screen/gameboy effect. The grey bars across the screen, not the color bars. The color bars would just be neons.
• Photos of computer screens.
• Very dim lighting, or characters almost or entirely hidden in the dark.

Patterns

• Thin stripes that are very close together (You could probably just tag this optical illusion because it simulates movement).
• Checker board (Too much visual information, especially on neons).
• Hypnotic swirl that takes up the whole piece or background.

Background colors and text

• White text on a black background is always eye strain.
• Any neon colored text on a black background is always eye strain.
• Small text. anything below 12 pt/px. If you think you can avoid sup/sub please do.

About screenreaders

Screenreaders generally cannot read fancy scripts, like the goth font, cursive font, or stencil letter font. These are not built in fonts, they are special characters.
A lot of emojis in one spot can slow down screenreaders.

Miscellaneous

When there's a lot of things going on in the background (think adult coloring books), that can be eye strain because it overloads the eyes with visual information. This is basically impossible to tag because there is no descriptive word for it, but please at least consider tagging pieces with a lot of things going on as eyestrain.
This is not a full list, only things the maker is aware of. If you wish to add to it, please do.

Thank you for wanting to make the internet safer and more accessible for disabled people.

If you want to learn more, check out this website about epilepsy and photosensitivity: https://epilepsy.com/stories/shedding-light-photosensitivity-one-epilepsys-most-complex-conditions-0