ULEARN Accessibility Guide Marquee Tag Causes Readability Issues

Avoid using the marquee element. It is not standard and creates moving text that is hard to read, especially for people using screen readersLinks to an external site. or other assistive technologies.

User Experience

What You May Experience

What Students May Experience

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Why this Matters

The marquee tag is deprecated because it introduces content that moves or scrolls, which can disrupt reading flow and make comprehension more difficult. Students with cognitive, attention, or visual processing disabilities may find it challenging to follow moving text, leading to reduced learning outcomes.

Additionally, the tag is no longer supported by most modern browsers, so the scrolling effect may not display at all, meaning that the emphasis intended for sighted students could be lost entirely. Rapid or continuous motion can also pose a serious health risk, as it may trigger seizures in individuals with photosensitive epilepsy.

How to Fix It

Great news! You're unlikely to encounter a "Marquee Tag Causes Readability Issues" issue, unless you're hanging on to old HTML files from before your course was on Canvas.

Fix in Canvas: If you copy content from an HTML page and paste it into a Canvas page, any marquee tags will automatically be removed, leaving only plain text. You can then use the Format menu in the Rich Content Editor to apply styling to emphasize the text, such as adding bold or italics.
Fix with DesignPLUS: Once your HTML content is added to a Canvas page, you can use elements like Callouts or Text Highlights to add emphasis.
Fix in UDOIT: This issue cannot be fixed from the UDOIT interface. Whenever you come across a "Marquee Tag Causes Readability Issues" issue, select it and, below the issue description, find the link that will quickly take you to your content so you can fix it with the Canvas RCE or the DesignPLUS sidebar. When you return to UDOIT, select Scan Now on the top right-hand side to stop the issue from surfacing.

Last Updated: Oct 23, 2025, 6:50 PM

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