Hit 347 color combinations in my style guide and realized I never checked them for colorblind issues

I was organizing my design system yesterday and counted every color swatch. 347 combos. Only about 30 of them pass basic deuteranopia contrast checks. Has anyone else been shocked by how much of their color library is unusable for a decent chunk of users?

2 comments

2 Comments

jordangibson3d ago

Oh MAN, that number hits hard. 30 out of 347 is brutal. I did a similar audit on my own color system last month and found out my entire "success" feedback palette was just green on green. Like a light green background with a darker green checkmark. For someone with deuteranopia it's basically invisible. That's a LOT of buttons and alerts that just vanish. I ended up having to add universal icons to everything and bump up my contrast ratios way past the bare minimum.

sean_robinson2d ago

Hold on though, didn't those green-on-green buttons actually work fine for the other 90% of your users who aren't colorblind? You added icons and boosted contrast for a small minority, but now the whole interface is visually cluttered and harder to scan for everyone else. If the original design was clean and consistent for the vast majority, maybe you just overcorrected instead of leaving well enough alone.