How to hide "Reduce motion" option from Preferences dialog in Next Experience UI?

[kack l]

In our instance (Yokohama release), when users open Preferences (via the avatar menu → Preferences), they can see options such as Display, Theme, Accessibility, and inside Accessibility there is a toggle called "Reduce motion".

For our requirement, we would like to hide or disable this "Reduce motion" option from the Preferences dialog, so that end users cannot see or change it.

• Is there a supported way to remove or hide this specific item?

• Can it be controlled by system properties, roles, or is it only possible via customization (e.g., UX Client Script / CSS)?

• We would like to minimize impact on upgradeability.

Any suggestions or best practices would be appreciated.

Thanks in advance!

[kaushal_snow]

Hi @kack l ,

I haven't found any documented supported system property or configuration to hide just the Reduce motion toggle from the Preferences dialog in Next Experience (Yokohama), ServiceNow says Reduce motion as one of the built in accessibility user preferences you can enable or disable at the user level...

Therefore if you really need to suppress it, your only recourse is a customization, which i think is not a best practise...

If you found my response helpful, please mark it as ‘Accept as Solution’ and ‘Helpful’. This helps other community members find the right answer more easily and supports the community.

[GlideFather]

Hi @kack l,

this is not possible to hide that toggle, but however you can create some background check - if somebody marks it true, it will automatically overwrite the value to false:

If you mark the option to true and go to User preferences, you will find this:

glide.polaris.animation_disabled

Find the system (default) value to be false, user's preference is true. So you can either create BR or any other "enforcement" to keep it always false...

Let me know if that answered your question

[Alex Coope - SN]

I would just like to point out (as this is quite important) a few things:
1. The feature being discussed is intended (and therefore available) to users who require the need to reduce motion, it is provided ootb as part of accessibility / a11y needs - more info here.
2. It is not either a good idea or recommended to go down any route to hide / remove / prohibit use of this feature. Any technical method will NOT be in-line with best practices, and it increases technical debt as it is an unnecessary customisation.

@kack l, I am curious - what kind of requirement do you actually have, and what is the business purpose for it? Because trying to stop users from being able to use, could actually cause other consequences (beyond technical),

Many thanks,
Kind regards 

[kack l]

@Alex Coope - SN 
Thanks for pointing that out.

To clarify our situation: the reason this came up is because some of our management asked whether the new options in the Preferences dialog (like Reduce motion) might have any impact on the system. Their initial thought was to disable or remove it “just in case.”

From my side, I agree with you — since this is part of OOTB accessibility (a11y) support, I don’t think it should be hidden or removed. My intention was to confirm if there was any supported way, but I also see that it is best practice to keep it as-is.

Thanks again for clarifying!