Timing

Interfaces in which things appear, disappear or happen according to some hard-coded time limit are often a hindrance to accessibility. Some users may read, type or react very slowly in comparison to others. If information they require is hidden before they are finished with it, or obscured by other information popping up which they didn't explicitly request, then your application will become very frustrating or even impossible to use.

Don't hard-code timeouts or other time-based features. Examples include automatic scrolling when dragging an object towards the edge of a window, holding down a scrollbar button, or automatically expanding a tree node when an object is dragged over it and held for a short time. These should either be customizable in the application, the GNOME control center, or at worst, manually editable from the command line via a configuration file or GConf entry.
Don't briefly show or hide information based on the movement of the mouse pointer. (Exception: system-provided features such as tooltips, which the user can configure on a system-wide level). If you must provide such features, make them optional so users can turn them off when a screen-review utility is installed.

Timing

About