Abstract
Apart from skip** headings, ropes, and the fact that you can’t skip a stone 89 times, one of the most important elements that a designer can have an input on is contrast. Whether it is contrast between colors, contrast between sections within a website, or even contrast between shapes, it is an easy way to identify different elements on a canvas, and it is vital for accessibility and good usability. At least, in theory. And if you’re noticing a pattern in me arguing about things that have long been accepted as the norm and have been proven to be correct, you’re probably right. Call me argumentative all day long. You would be 100% correct, so there’s some data right there. Just because something has been accepted doesn’t mean we should not change our minds based on available information, as kee** an open mind to change is exactly what we’re talking about. Bottom line is that contrast matters. And it matters a lot.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Notes
- 1.
They’ve said it, not me: www.wired.com/video/watch/almost-impossible-skip-stone-89-times
- 2.
Cline D, Hofstetter HW, Griffin J (1997). Dictionary of Visual Science (4th ed.). Boston: Butterworth-Heinemann.
- 3.
In the off-chance you are a designer living in an alternate reality, RGB stands for red, green, and blue, and the whole thing refers to a color model where these three primary colors are added together in various ways to produce all the other colors. It’s what your screen uses.
- 4.
If you want to dig a bit deeper, this is where you can find more info on how the WCAG contrast ratios are calculated (www.w3.org/WAI/WCAG21/Understanding/contrast-minimum.html).
- 5.
Gittings, N. S., and Fozard, J. L. (1986). Age related changes in visual acuity. Experimental gerontology, 21(4-5), 423–433. https://doi.org/10.1016/0531-5565(86)90047-1
- 6.
- 7.
Image not directly sourced, but heavily influenced by Myndex Research.
- 8.
- 9.
Relationship Between Acuity and Contrast Sensitivity: Differences Due to Eye Disease (2020). This is a free-for-all, great paper in the relationship between contrast sensitivity and acuity: https://iovs.arvojournals.org/article.aspx?articleid=2770151
- 10.
- 11.
- 12.
Randomly chosen number.
- 13.
- 14.
Burnett, Dean (2016). The Idiot Brain. Guardian Books, p. 6.
- 15.
White space doesn’t necessarily need to be white. It simply means empty space around elements in an attempt to clearly differentiate between them.
- 16.
The WCAG recommends only doing that when you have only a few links within a body of text. Otherwise, having a trillion underlined words within a paragraph would create other problems. For most situations, and for all intents and purposes, a simple contrast difference is enough.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2023 The Author(s), under exclusive license to APress Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Georgakas, D. (2023). Now You See Me. Now You Don’t.. In: A11Y Unraveled. Apress, Berkeley, CA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4842-9085-9_10
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4842-9085-9_10
Published:
Publisher Name: Apress, Berkeley, CA
Print ISBN: 978-1-4842-9084-2
Online ISBN: 978-1-4842-9085-9
eBook Packages: Professional and Applied ComputingApress Access BooksProfessional and Applied Computing (R0)