Animated icons: re-inventing visual cues for the visually impaired computer user

Universal access to information is critical for universal participation in society. The Graphical User Interface is a mainstream means for accessing the computing resources needed to access information. These interfaces have become challenging to the visually impaired. Many partially sighted individuals posses residual vision. While the enlargement of screen content is important, enlargement alone will not address all of issues involving the utilization of GUIs. While icons are generally useful, animation increases the usefulness of the icons. The sizes of static and animated icons are compared in order to ascertain the impact of animation on icon size.