Hot take: I stopped trusting automated contrast checkers after a user called me out

I had this ui design with a soft blue on white that passed every WCAG tool, but a visually impaired user said it was basically invisible to them on their phone outdoors. Turns out the tools can't account for real-world lighting or cheap screens with bad brightness. Anyone else find that your own eyes and actual user tests work better than the checker scores?

2 comments

2 Comments

verac493d ago

The same thing happened to me with a pale yellow on white combo. Ran it through three different checkers and they all said pass, but a user with astigmatism said the text just melted into the background for them. What actually helped was testing on an older phone with the brightness turned way down and using a browser extension that simulates different vision types. Made me realize those tools are a good starting point but not the final say on readability.

burns.brooke3d ago

Did your friend end up trying a dyslexia friendly font too?