Is it ever okay to auto-play audio?
We all know those websites - where you launch a page and experience the irritation of music, sound effects, or video, while you search frantically for the mute button so you can carry on with your task. While it can be generally annoying and frustrating; for screen readers users, who navigate by listening, auto-playing sounds can significantly interfere with their ability to use and enjoy content.
WCAG recommends, "therefore, we discourage the
practice of automatically starting sounds (especially if they last more than three seconds) and
encourage the sound be started by an action initiated by the user after
they reach the page, rather than requiring that the sound be stopped by
an action of the user after they land on the page."
Sounds pretty reasonable!
Relates to: WCAG 1.4.2 Audio Control
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