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Meta rant: Why, oh why do people use low contrast colors and expect people to be able to read their blog? Has nobody heard about accessibility? Or do they not c

Meta rant: Why, oh why do people use low contrast colors and expect people to be able to read their blog? Has nobody heard about accessibility? Or do they not care, because “I can read it”.

hamza_nouali 6y ago
I checked Chrome DevTools and it looks accessible. even though, it's hard to read.
- falcolas 6y ago
  Chrome tools will tell you if it meets the minimum "don't sue me" standards, not whether it's readable. Their other choices - thin stroke font, minimal font size - make the contrast insufficient.
jedimastert 6y ago
> Has nobody heard about accessibility? Or do they not care, because “I can read it”. Genuinely, no. For those who have it, vision is such an integral part of...well, existence that intuitively grasping that people have completely different ways of perceiving it beyond the obvious is extremely difficult. This goes a bit beyond the "try to explain 'blue' to someone" troupe. I have difficulties explaining my own brand of vision difficulties (or hearing difficulties, for that matter) without basically explaining the optics of vision and going from there. For instance, for folks with without some kind of color difficulties, being able to look at two colors (what most would perceive as) completely different colors and being able to say "those colors would look the same to color blind folks" is almost impossible without training or extra tools. So no, it doesn't occur to someone without training to constant question their own perception, unfortunately. The most we can do is give web masters a shout when we notice and promote accessibility tools wherever we can
- falcolas 6y ago
  I get what you're saying, but decreasing vision acuity is one thing everybody in this world is guaranteed to run into (barring an early death, that is).
  - rootusrootus 6y ago
    100% agree. As someone who is sadly now closer to 50 than 40, I have endured a marked decrease in my ability to focus on things close to my eyes, such as ... my phone. This is especially painful for me because for most of my life I have had better than average vision. I still have great vision at a distance, but at arm's length I struggle. And reading glasses make me ill. It kinda sucks. So I completely appreciate accessibility options. I've tweaked my iPhone settings to improve contrast wherever possible. What annoys me a lot is how many app designers think some form of gray-on-gray text is perfectly readable. No, no it's not. Black on white, white on black. Something with more contrast, please.
  - jedimastert 6y ago
    I also don't think it would be the firs time younger people do not comprehend the difficulties of aging, but that's a whole other bowl of wax
riebschlager 6y ago
The contrast ratio between #000000 and #8F9BA8 is 7.42:1 which passes accessibility guidelines.
- falcolas 6y ago
  > For many of us, some of these combinations are not very readable. That is why 4.5:1 is a minimal contrast ratio. Having a thin stroke (the space font face) and small character size (18 px, which is a 12 pt equivalent) for your typeface typically means that you need to increase the contrast to compensate. In other words, 7.5:1 is insufficient given the design choices. Even if it's "legal".
- Igelau 6y ago
  Guidelines are only a map, they are not the territory. The eye of the beholder is more important than the contrast ratio.
thatguy0900 6y ago
I'm 25 and this is still a little uncomfortable to read.
jedimastert 6y ago
Also, I think the issue isn't contrast, but line weight
joana035 6y ago
Pro tip: Ctrl+Alt+R in firefox :-)
- huhtenberg 6y ago
  This appears to do absolutely nothing.
  - falcolas 6y ago
    Reader mode. The key combination will change by OS.
    - huhtenberg 6y ago
      Looks like a Windows combination to me and it's not what FF uses for the Reader mode.
  - po1nter 6y ago
    Maybe he's talking about reader view which, for me, can be enabled with F9 or clicking the icon in the address bar (https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/firefox-reader-view-clutter-free-web-pages https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/firefox-reader-view-clu...)
lisper 6y ago
Heh, the whole page just looks black to me, and I have normal vision and the latest version of Firefox.
aembleton 6y ago
Just use Reader View to make it more accessible.
alasano 6y ago
Perhaps an unpopular opinion but I thought the opposite, was very easy on the eyes.
novok 6y ago
When I was a teen white text on black was easy to read and cool. I remember my dad making a comment about how it was hard to read and a bit incredulous that I was fine with it. As I got older, not so much in certain contexts. The author is probably young.

Meta rant: Why, oh why do people use low contrast colors and expect people to be able to read their blog? Has nobody heard about accessibility? Or do they not care, because “I can read it”.

hamza_nouali 6y ago

I checked Chrome DevTools and it looks accessible. even though, it's hard to read.

falcolas 6y ago
Chrome tools will tell you if it meets the minimum "don't sue me" standards, not whether it's readable. Their other choices - thin stroke font, minimal font size - make the contrast insufficient.

jedimastert 6y ago

> Has nobody heard about accessibility? Or do they not care, because “I can read it”. Genuinely, no. For those who have it, vision is such an integral part of...well, existence that intuitively grasping that people have completely different ways of perceiving it beyond the obvious is extremely difficult. This goes a bit beyond the "try to explain 'blue' to someone" troupe. I have difficulties explaining my own brand of vision difficulties (or hearing difficulties, for that matter) without basically explaining the optics of vision and going from there. For instance, for folks with without some kind of color difficulties, being able to look at two colors (what most would perceive as) completely different colors and being able to say "those colors would look the same to color blind folks" is almost impossible without training or extra tools. So no, it doesn't occur to someone without training to constant question their own perception, unfortunately. The most we can do is give web masters a shout when we notice and promote accessibility tools wherever we can

falcolas 6y ago
I get what you're saying, but decreasing vision acuity is one thing everybody in this world is guaranteed to run into (barring an early death, that is).
- rootusrootus 6y ago
  100% agree. As someone who is sadly now closer to 50 than 40, I have endured a marked decrease in my ability to focus on things close to my eyes, such as ... my phone. This is especially painful for me because for most of my life I have had better than average vision. I still have great vision at a distance, but at arm's length I struggle. And reading glasses make me ill. It kinda sucks. So I completely appreciate accessibility options. I've tweaked my iPhone settings to improve contrast wherever possible. What annoys me a lot is how many app designers think some form of gray-on-gray text is perfectly readable. No, no it's not. Black on white, white on black. Something with more contrast, please.
- jedimastert 6y ago
  I also don't think it would be the firs time younger people do not comprehend the difficulties of aging, but that's a whole other bowl of wax

riebschlager 6y ago

The contrast ratio between #000000 and #8F9BA8 is 7.42:1 which passes accessibility guidelines.

falcolas 6y ago
> For many of us, some of these combinations are not very readable. That is why 4.5:1 is a minimal contrast ratio. Having a thin stroke (the space font face) and small character size (18 px, which is a 12 pt equivalent) for your typeface typically means that you need to increase the contrast to compensate. In other words, 7.5:1 is insufficient given the design choices. Even if it's "legal".
Igelau 6y ago
Guidelines are only a map, they are not the territory. The eye of the beholder is more important than the contrast ratio.

thatguy0900 6y ago

I'm 25 and this is still a little uncomfortable to read.

jedimastert 6y ago

Also, I think the issue isn't contrast, but line weight

joana035 6y ago

Pro tip: Ctrl+Alt+R in firefox :-)

huhtenberg 6y ago
This appears to do absolutely nothing.
- falcolas 6y ago
  Reader mode. The key combination will change by OS.
  - huhtenberg 6y ago
    Looks like a Windows combination to me and it's not what FF uses for the Reader mode.
- po1nter 6y ago
  Maybe he's talking about reader view which, for me, can be enabled with F9 or clicking the icon in the address bar (https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/firefox-reader-view-clutter-free-web-pages https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/firefox-reader-view-clu...)

lisper 6y ago

Heh, the whole page just looks black to me, and I have normal vision and the latest version of Firefox.

aembleton 6y ago

Just use Reader View to make it more accessible.

alasano 6y ago

Perhaps an unpopular opinion but I thought the opposite, was very easy on the eyes.

novok 6y ago

When I was a teen white text on black was easy to read and cool. I remember my dad making a comment about how it was hard to read and a bit incredulous that I was fine with it. As I got older, not so much in certain contexts. The author is probably young.