Color

Ensuring adequate color contrast and appropriate use of color in documents and online is beneficial for all students, and vital for the visually impaired. It is important that users with low vision or color blindness can differentiate between the foreground and the background.

• Students can easily focus on the content rather than the potential distraction of color.
• Students without a color printer can print of documents and still understand important areas.
• Content can be easily moved from different document file types and computers without losing highlighted portions. Not all media have the same colors available.
• Students with limited or no perception of color can understand all the content.

Color Contrast Checkers

Use a Color Contrast Ratio of 4.5:1. Black and white is the best contrast, but if you choose to use color then use a tool such the suggestions below to make sure it meets the requirements.

• WebAIM Color Contrast Checker – This tool will determine the contrast ratio between any two colors. Enter a foreground and background color in RGB hexadecimal format (e.g., #FD3 or #F7DA39) or choose a color using the color picker. The lightness slider can be used to adjust the selected color.
• WAVE – This tool analyzes at once contrast ratios for all elements on a page at any specified URL. (It does this as part of an overall accessibility check.)