Why it matters:
As the fierce internet debate over the color of “The Dress” taught us back in 2015, not everyone perceives color in the same way. Perception of color can be impacted by a variety of factors, including age, sensory disabilities, neurological and optical differences, and environmental conditions like lighting and sun glare. Color vision deficiency (CVD), commonly referred to as color blindness, also affects roughly 13 million Americans and their perception of various colors. Choose a high color contrast scheme for your design and avoid using color alone to convey meaning to help your audience perceive and understand your message more effectively.
Many content creation programs, such as Microsoft Word and Canva, have built-in color palettes and color contrast checkers that will suggest more accessible alternative colors for your project. You can also use a free color contrast analyzer, like WebAIM’s Contrast Checker, to assess your design choices and ensure they meet the recommended contrast ratio of 4.5:1 for small text and 3:1 for large text. When using color to highlight important information or differentiate between adjacent content, employ a secondary indicator such as a pattern or text style like bold or italic. You can check your design by viewing it in grayscale to see if any meaning is lost.
For more information, please visit the Digital Accessibility Teaching Guide.