My sister's friend couldn't read the menu at my birthday dinner

I was at a restaurant in Portland for my birthday last month and had printed these cute menus with a light gray font on a cream background. My sister's friend, who has some vision issues, had to ask me to read half of it out loud. I felt so bad, I mean I just thought it looked soft and nice. I ran the colors through a checker tool when I got home and the contrast ratio was like 2.1:1, which is way too low. Now I test everything, even stuff I think is fine. Has anyone else had a moment like that where a real person pointed it out?

2 comments

2 Comments

green.mason16d ago

Saw a graphic designer talk about this exact thing on a podcast last week. They said low contrast text is one of the most common accessibility mistakes, even for pros. He mentioned light gray on white as a real problem combo that looks clean but fails for a lot of people. It's easy to forget when you're just trying to make something look nice. Your story about the menu is a perfect example of why those checker tools exist.

faithrodriguez16d ago

Yeah that's the thing, it looks clean to us but fails for real people. Did the designer talk about why this keeps happening even with pros? Is it just trends, or are design tools not making contrast clear enough during the process? Feels like a basic thing that should be caught way earlier.