Colour and contrast
color-contrast
WCAG 1.4.3 Contrast (Minimum) Level AA
Who this affects
The text does not stand out enough from its background. People with low vision, and anyone in bright light, will struggle to read it.
How to fix it
Raise the contrast to at least 4.5:1 for normal text, or 3:1 for text at 24px, or 18.66px and bold. Darkening the text is usually the smaller change.
How much work is it?
Usually a template or design change. That is a rough guide for planning, not an estimate for your codebase. A single content edit repeated across a template is a template change.
What a person still has to check
Passing this rule does not mean 1.4.3 passes. Automation checks part of the criterion, and the rest is a judgement:
Check the text we could not measure: text over images, video, and anything drawn on a canvas.
Read 1.4.3 Contrast (Minimum) in plain language
Where this check comes from
This is an axe-core rule. We run axe in a real browser on every page we scan. Deque’s reference for color-contrast
Find out whether your site does this
A scan checks this rule on every page it visits, and shows you the code and a screenshot of each place it fires.