Colour contrast: Impact on users

Text contrast

Liz didn’t have any difficulty with reading until she was in her fifties, when her close vision began to deteriorate.

Now, she finds it very difficult to read from screens, often needing to increase the font size.

Liz had never even thought about colour contrast, but now she constantly finds that pastel colours and grey text on a white background is almost always impossible to read, even when she increases the size.

When reading webpages with good colour contrast, Liz can concentrate for long periods of time and complete most tasks quite easily. When the contrast is poor, she get tired quickly and often experience headaches.

Non-text contrast

Paulo has been colour-blind from birth. He doesn’t really notice most of the time, but bright reds and greens can get lost against white backgrounds and can be particularly difficult for him to see.

He doesn’t notice most of the time if isn’t something that directly affects him. But, if it is an essential part of a service such as a button or a notification banner, he can get stuck. It can cause him a lot of stress and it lowers his confidence using digital services.