Shoutout to the person who called my chart 'sunlight washed out'

I made a line graph for a local group's yearly report, using light blue on a white background. I thought it looked clean. Someone at the meeting, who I later found out has some vision trouble, said it just looked like 'faded lines in sunlight' and they couldn't follow the data at all. That hit me hard. I ran it through a checker tool and sure enough, the contrast ratio was way too low. I changed the blue to a much darker navy, almost a black-blue, and kept the white background. The difference was huge. The chart went from looking pretty to actually being useful for everyone. It made me realize I was designing for my own eyes, not for all the people who need to read it. Has anyone else had a simple piece of feedback totally shift how you pick colors?

3 comments

3 Comments

sean_dixon961mo ago

Ever think high contrast was just for bold designs? I used to avoid dark colors on charts, worried they'd look too heavy. After a friend with color blindness pointed out my "subtle" green and gray combo was a muddy mess to him, I switched to black lines on white with pattern fills. The clarity for everyone was worth dropping my muted palette.

lucaslane6d ago

This kind of thing pops up everywhere once you start looking. Grocery stores got rid of those low contrast shelf tags after customers couldn't read prices from more than a few feet away. Seems like making things clear for everyone usually ends up working better than trying to be subtle.

terry_hayes181mo agoMost Upvoted

My last client fired me for charts that looked too harsh.