sam_harris68•7d agoTop Commenter

I used to think high contrast text was the only way to go for accessibility

For years I designed everything with black text on white backgrounds, thinking that was the gold standard. Then I worked on a project for a senior center in Portland where the director told me some residents with certain eye conditions actually prefer a softer cream background with dark gray text instead. After testing both versions with a group of 12 people over 70, the cream version got consistently higher readability scores. Has anyone else found that the standard high contrast advice doesn't work for every audience?

2 comments

2 Comments

charlie_stone727d ago

idk, Portland kinda sounds like an outlier. I mean, 12 people over 70 is a really small sample to make any big claims off of. Maybe it's just me but I've seen a ton of studies that still back high contrast for most folks with vision issues. You can't really throw out the whole rulebook because one senior center director said so.

wadeyoung7d ago

Honestly, you're right that 12 people is a small group, but that doesn't mean the overall idea is wrong. Plenty of studies out there show that contrast needs vary by condition, like how people with astigmatism can struggle with pure black on white.

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