Light gray text used to be fine, now I squint at my own designs

Back in 2020 I'd pick a soft gray like #999 for captions and call it a day. Then my own client in Austin, a 58 year old woman who wears glasses, told me she couldn't read half the labels on her invoice app I mocked up. That was the moment I started measuring every pair of colors with a contrast ratio tool instead of trusting my eyes. Now I aim for at least a 4.5 ratio on all text, even for big headings, which means way less pretty pastels and way more dark grays. Do you still rely on your monitor to judge readability, or do you have a hard number you check every time?

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vera_roberts19h ago

is 4.5 really worth it for big display headings though? like if the text is 40px bold, it just looks muddy and heavy when you force it to hit that ratio. i get the invoice labels thing, that's legit, but i feel like there's a difference between body copy and giant hero text. plus half the time my clients end up picking the darker gray anyway and then complain it looks "too harsh" or "corporate." i keep a contrast checker open too but i mostly use it for small stuff, not for everything.