I spent $80 on a color contrast checker and it was worth every penny

I used to just eyeball my dark mode text colors, thinking if it looked okay to me it was fine. Then I dropped about $80 on a proper color contrast checker tool last month. The first thing I did was run it on a dashboard I was really proud of. It flagged over half my text elements as failing accessibility standards for low vision users. I was shocked. I had to go back and adjust my near-black grays to be a bit lighter and boost my accent colors. It added a full day to the project, but now I know it's actually usable for everyone. Has anyone else had a tool totally change their process like that? What do you use to check your contrast?

3 comments

3 Comments

sean_robinson2mo ago

Eighty bucks for a color checker? I just use the free one built into my browser's dev tools. Can't imagine paying that much when the free stuff works fine.

the_phoenix2mo ago

Guess my eyeballs have been failing their own accessibility test this whole time.

casey_campbell1mo ago

Eyeballs failing their own accessibility test" is a great line, @the_phoenix. I had a similar wake-up call trying to pick a font color for a medical form. My perfect dark blue looked fine on my screen, but on my coworker's cheaper monitor it just blurred into the black background. Felt like I was designing secret messages.