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Color contrast

The difference in brightness between text and its background, measured as a ratio that WCAG sets minimums for.

Also called
colour contrast, contrast ratio

Color contrast is how clearly text or a graphic stands out from what is behind it, measured as a ratio from 1:1 (no difference) to 21:1 (black on white). WCAG’s Level AA minimum is 4.5:1 for ordinary text and 3:1 for large text, icons, and the parts of controls a person needs to see.

Low contrast was the most common failure in the WebAIM Million 2026, which found low contrast text on 83.9% of the top million home pages. It affects people with low vision, people with color vision deficiency, and anyone reading a phone in sunlight. A contrast checker takes seconds.

Source

Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.2

World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), 2024. Checked .

Low vision
Vision that cannot be fully corrected with glasses, so a person needs larger text, more contrast, or magnification.
Color vision deficiency
Difficulty telling certain colors apart, most often red and green, which is common and mostly inherited.
Design system
A shared set of components, colors, type, and rules that a team builds products from, where accessibility can be set once.

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