That time a librarian gave me the best color contrast tip ever

Last year at the public library in Austin, this older lady saw me struggling with a poster design and said "honey, if you squint at it and it blurs together, the colors are too close." I tried that trick on my last project and it caught 3 low-contrast text issues I missed, has anyone else used the squint test before?

2 comments

2 Comments

jordangibson1d ago

Wait, is squinting really that unreliable though? I gotta push back a little on @felix478 because I think the trick works way better than they're giving it credit for, especially if you're doing it right. The key isn't just squinting until things look mushy - it's about training your eye to notice when shapes and lines disappear entirely versus just getting soft. If you're squinting and the text still reads clearly but the background bleeds out, that's actually a good sign your contrast is solid. And honestly, I've run into plenty of cases where a WCAG tool said a ratio passed but the design still looked muddy to me in real lighting. Tools are great and all, but they don't account for things like glare on a screen or the way certain blues and reds can feel like they vibrate next to each other even if numbers say they're fine. The old librarian's trick catches stuff that numbers sometimes miss.

felix4781d ago

Squinting at stuff is an old design trick but honestly it's kind of unreliable unless you're working with super bold colors. I get why people like it but it misses a lot of subtle issues that actual contrast checkers catch, especially with smaller text or lighter tints. Like, I've squinted at some designs and thought "looks fine" then checked with a tool and the ratio was trash lol. Depends on what you're making I guess, but for anything serious I'd rather use a proper WCAG checker over the squint method.