Do not use meta refresh with a time limit

[joaooliveira]

Why is this important?

If the time interval specified is too short, some users will not have enough time to complete reading the information on the page. Users with cognitive disorders may also be disoriented by the unexpected refresh and it can also cause mobile users to incur extra charges and download times.

Meta refresh tags have some drawbacks: There can be a usability problem if the redirect happens quickly (less than 2–3 seconds). This prevents users of older browsers from using the “Back” button. If the redirect happens quickly and goes to a non-existent page, your readers may get stuck in a loop without seeing any content other than a 404 page. Refreshing the current page can be confusing. If a user didn’t request the reload, they may become concerned about your site’s security.

How can I resolve this issue?

Remove code that refreshes or reloads your web page.

What topics do this checkpoint affect?

• Accessibility (WCAG 2, 2.2.1)
• Legal

Can you explain how this checkpoint works?

This checkpoints looks in a page to see if a meta element with a refresh value exists, if so it checks to see if it has a time limit, in case it will be flagged as an error.

Example: <meta http-equiv="refresh" content="30">

References

• HTML meta http-equiv Attribute