Color Contrast & Modern Accessibility (WCAG / APCA)
The craft of picking legible, accessible interface palettes without sacrificing high aesthetics.
Light gray body text on a clean white card might look sleek on an OLED designer monitor, but it's virtually unreadable for over half of your visitors in direct sunlight.
Live Contrast & WCAG Tester
Use the interactive widget below to pick text and background colors and check live WCAG AA / AAA compliance:
Live Color Contrast & WCAG Tester
Pick colors and calculate accessibility scores in real-time
Accessibility is Not a Luxury in Design.
Ensuring adequate contrast is vital to prevent eye strain and maintain crisp legibility across all ambient lighting conditions.
WCAG 2.1 vs Modern APCA
WCAG 2.1 mandates at least a 4.5:1 contrast ratio for normal body copy and 3.0:1 for large headings. The newer APCA standard factors in font size, weight, and ambient conditions.
If you don't want to darken a color, increasing the font size or font weight dramatically improves perceived contrast.