Can everyone see these?

The best available estimate is that around 1 in 14 adults under 60 are stereoblind - roughly 6 to 8 percent. That comes from Chopin, Bavelier and Levi's 2019 best-evidence synthesis in Ophthalmic and Physiological Optics, which also notes there is no firm consensus, because the figure depends heavily on how you test for it.

Separately, amblyopia affects roughly 1 to 5 percent of people and strabismus a similar range. In all of these the eyes may work perfectly well individually, but the brain does not combine their two views into depth. Nothing about willpower or practice changes that.

The number of people who say they cannot see stereograms is much higher than the number who physiologically cannot, because it also includes everyone who never learned the knack. That part is trainable, and most people get there within a few minutes.

Every image made here comes with a Reveal: the same depth information presented as a gentle side-to-side motion rather than as stereo disparity. Depth read from motion parallax and changing occlusion does not require two working eyes, so a wigglegram works for people who are stereoblind, monocular, or amblyopic - with no glasses and no special hardware.

It is not an afterthought bolted on the side. It is:

• on by default, on every image, including free ones;
• included in every download, so a gift still works for the person receiving it;
• a first-class tab in the studio and on every shared page, not buried in a menu.

The Reveal is a small repetitive animation, and repetitive motion is itself an accessibility concern - one that correlates with the same population, since binocular vision differences and motion sensitivity often travel together. So:

• it never autoplays if your system asks for reduced motion;
• every instance has a visible play and pause control;
• it stops when scrolled off screen.

• Alt text on a stereogram describes the hidden subject, not the pattern. "A field of coloured dots" is useless to a screen-reader user.
• Every control is reachable and operable from the keyboard, with visible focus rings - with one exception, listed in the statement below.
• Text, including the small print, meets WCAG AA contrast against our backgrounds, and the interface is dark by default because a bright surround measurably increases eye strain when you are trying to relax your focus.
• Nothing depends on colour alone to convey meaning.

We aim for the site to meet the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.2 at level AA. It does not fully yet; we know of these gaps and are working on them:

• A stereogram itself cannot be made accessible to everyone - that is the nature of the image. The Reveal and the alt text are the alternatives, and every picture has both.
• Drawing or erasing a cut-out by hand, with the brush in the studio's object editor, needs a mouse, pen or finger. The automatic cut-out and every other studio control work from the keyboard.

This statement was last reviewed in October 2026; the next review is due by April 2027.

If something here does not work for you, that is a bug and we want to hear about it. Write to us at support@staregram.com or use the button below, and we will fix it.

• Chopin, Bavelier & Levi (2019), "The prevalence and diagnosis of stereoblindness", Ophthalmic and Physiological Optics 39(2).
• Thimbleby, Inglis & Witten (1994), "Displaying 3D Images: Algorithms for Single-Image Random Dot Stereograms", IEEE Computer 27(10) - the algorithm this product is built on.