Scenario
You open a document or web page, but the text is hard to see because it blends into the background. Links are not clear because they only use colour and are not underlined. Buttons may look like normal text.
This can make it easy to miss important information, click the wrong thing, or need to ask someone else to read it for you.
What is getting in the way?
Low colour contrast can make text hard to read. For example, light grey text on a white background may be difficult to see clearly.
This can affect people who:
- have low vision
- have colour vision deficiency
- experience migraines
- have dyslexia
- are using a screen in bright light
- zoom in or use high-contrast settings
- view content on a smaller screen
It can also cause problems when colour is the only way information is shown. For example, if overdue items are marked in red only, some people may miss that information completely.
Tools that can help
- High contrast mode and colour filters – helpful for different types of colour vision deficiency
- Magnifier and Zoom settings
- Microsoft Immersive Reader – helps to simplify pages and change colours
- Accessibility checkers in Microsoft Office – to flag low contrast and colour-only meaning
- Contrast checkers (online tools) – to test foreground and background colour combinations
You do not need to try everything. Start with one small change and see what helps.
