Totara Talent Experience Platform Open Discussions

Accessibility Contrast Checker

 
Diane Bullock
Accessibility Contrast Checker
by Diane Bullock - Thursday, 3 March 2022, 6:15 AM
 

I think we are version 12 and colour our course category banners. However, with the new wave of accessibility laws we see some banners would not pass the WCAG contrast guidelines. So I thought I'd redo the graphics. I'd always been told a reliable checker was the WEBAIM contrast checker. However, so my horror I have found this is NOT accurate.

The same colour from one screen to another will look and sample differently and even have a different hex code! Don't even know how this is possible or why the tool is still around. It could pass on your main screen and fail on your second!

Does anyone have a more reliable suggestion please?


Simon Chester
Re: Accessibility Contrast Checker
by Simon Chester - Thursday, 3 March 2022, 4:36 PM
Group Totara

Hi Diane,

Internally we use https://contrast-ratio.com/ and the WEBAIM contrast checker. I've found them to be accurate, but I only really use the hex input.

Are you on macOS by any chance? I've found there are some issues when using the colour picker due to somewhat inconsistent implementation of colourspace management by browsers. Not really WEBAIM's fault as they just use the browser's colourpicker, and all browser-based tools are going to have the same limitation.

The most accurate way would be to load up the image in photoshop or another image editor, and use the internal colourpicker there to get the colours, then enter the hex code in to one of the contrast checker tool.