: Is an animated favicon.ico a bad idea? Are there cool uses of animated favicon.ico out there? Whenever I generate a favicon.ico using html-kit.com, it gives me the option to get an animated

@Alves908

Unlike animated GIF's on the web page, a favicon GIF can't be stopped with the ESC key.
It will keep going indefinitely, and that is sure to chase away some of your visitors.

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@Harper822

Are there any creative or interesting usages of an animated favicon out there?


There's a playable version of the Defender game that takes place entirely inside the favicon.

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@Moriarity557

Please be aware of W3C's Accesibility Guideline

Guideline 2.3 asks you not to design content in a way that is known to cause seizures:
"Web pages do not contain anything that flashes more than three times in any one second period, or the flash is below the general flash and red flash thresholds. (Level A)"

see www.w3.org/TR/WCAG20/#seizure

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@Caterina187

There are two problems I have seen with this.The first is that it makes your website look like it is never done loading, because users normally only see the loading favicon animated and naturally associate any animation with the browser loading. The second problem is that animated favicons distract the user, just imagine having 8 tabs open and each one showing tiny animations.

Generally animated favicons will drive your page's UX down, but simple and descriptive static ones are always useful.

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@Bryan171

Don't do it. The days of moving content without user consent are over. In fact don't use splash pages or auto playing video.

Users need to produce action for effects.

However, mileage may vary. There is such a thing a novelty design, this is the reason splash pages worked in the past. Just be sure what you do adds to the user experience not just yours.

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@Alves908

I guess an animated favicon is like all others animated GIFs : done right, it can be awesome and really add up to your website. But make sure not to overuse it, as it can really get visually annoying !

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