That time I ignored contrast ratios and lost a client over it

I used to just eyeball my text colors against backgrounds. Looked fine to me so I sent it off. Client came back saying their older team members couldn't read half the navigation on the dashboard I built. Ran it through a contrast checker and my light gray on white was like a 2.1 ratio. Had to redo 7 pages of styles for free to keep the contract. These days I check every single color pair against WCAG AA before I even start coding. Anyone else get burned by trusting your own eyes instead of the numbers?

2 comments

2 Comments

margaret_lane6d ago

Yeah I used to be in the same boat honestly. Thought if I could read it fine then it was good enough, but after a couple clients squinting at screens I started running everything through a checker too. Now I don't even trust my own eyes until the numbers say it's okay.

avery7216d ago

Ugh, "don't even trust my own eyes" is exactly where I'm at now. I had a project where I was sure the contrast was fine, then the client sent me a screenshot and I felt so dumb (and their font was tiny on top of that).