blink element (<blink> tag)

In the early days of the web (the early- to mid-90s), there were not many features available for styling web pages. The CSS specification (version 1) was first released in 1996, and not adopted consistently by browsers until much later. Before CSS, browsers experimented with several features to make particular text sections stand out and grab the user's attention if desired. The <blink> element was one of these, introduced in early versions of Netscape Navigator; Internet Explorer's <marquee> element was another one.

The <blink> element was apparently created after a conversation in a bar in Mountain View between Netscape engineer Lou Montulli and colleagues. When he went into the office the next morning, he found that one of his fellow engineers have stayed up all night and implemented it (read the story here).

While initially popular, <blink> became much maligned because of overuse; many people found it annoying. More importantly, it degrades readability, and can be particularly problematic for users with visual impairments or cognitive disorders such as epilepsy or ADHD. It can be disorienting or, in the worst cases, even trigger seizures.

<blink> was never properly specified, and never achieved significant cross-browser support. It can be considered a piece of web history.

The <blink> element was used like this:

<blink>In ancient browsers, I may have blinked</blink>

• The CSS text-decoration-line property has a blink value that should have the same effect, but most modern browsers ignore it.
• The JavaScript String.blink() method wraps a text string in <blink></blink> tags but, as discussed earlier, this element is no longer supported anywhere.
• CSS animations could still be used to create blinking text. However, you should avoid blinking text on web pages for the reasons discussed above.

• Blink element on Wikipedia
• WCAG 2.2.2: Pause, Stop, Hide
• WCAG 2.3.1: Three Flashes or Below Threshold