So, this is math. Someone has put together a computer program that can do math, and determine what colors have what contrast when laid next to or on top of one another. That is good.
Meanwhile, the browser (or operating system) knows what colors are on top of or next to each other. Because it is doing the laying out.
Why, then, is this tool being put in the hands of BILLIONS of web content creators, to use as they choose, rather than into the “Accessibility” or “View” menu of web browsers or operating systems, which can then enforce contrast ratios for users who need it?
I, for instance, do not need high contrast text on my screen. So there’s no reason for anyone to worry about this for me. Someone else, however, might need text that is HIGHER contrast than the WCAG recommendations. So this site does nothing for them! They still can’t read stuff with the recommended contrast.
We MUST push for the renderer to enforce high contrast for users who need it, with a best-effort attempt at maintaining the color pallet approximately as designed, while allowing BILLIONS of people to just not worry about this! Because, I assure you, even if billions of web content creators DO worry about this, billions more don’t, and never will. And people with visual difficulties still deserve access to content created by people who don’t care to enforce high contrast.
Because asking a billion people to choose colors carefully (which will still not make their web content accessible to all vision needs) costs billions and billions of dollars of time and effort, and will still not get 100% (or even 70%) penetration into the market.
Solving the issue in the renderer will make 100% of sites accessible to ALL vision needs, will allow site designers to choose default designs based solely on their own preferences, and will be billions of dollars cheaper and lead to better outcomes for everyone involved.
So, this is math. Someone has put together a computer program that can do math, and determine what colors have what contrast when laid next to or on top of one another. That is good.
Meanwhile, the browser (or operating system) knows what colors are on top of or next to each other. Because it is doing the laying out.
Why, then, is this tool being put in the hands of BILLIONS of web content creators, to use as they choose, rather than into the “Accessibility” or “View” menu of web browsers or operating systems, which can then enforce contrast ratios for users who need it?
I, for instance, do not need high contrast text on my screen. So there’s no reason for anyone to worry about this for me. Someone else, however, might need text that is HIGHER contrast than the WCAG recommendations. So this site does nothing for them! They still can’t read stuff with the recommended contrast.
We MUST push for the renderer to enforce high contrast for users who need it, with a best-effort attempt at maintaining the color pallet approximately as designed, while allowing BILLIONS of people to just not worry about this! Because, I assure you, even if billions of web content creators DO worry about this, billions more don’t, and never will. And people with visual difficulties still deserve access to content created by people who don’t care to enforce high contrast.
Dark Reader is such a plugin. But why not have both accessible websites and a fallback for sites which don’t happen to be accessible?
Because asking a billion people to choose colors carefully (which will still not make their web content accessible to all vision needs) costs billions and billions of dollars of time and effort, and will still not get 100% (or even 70%) penetration into the market.
Solving the issue in the renderer will make 100% of sites accessible to ALL vision needs, will allow site designers to choose default designs based solely on their own preferences, and will be billions of dollars cheaper and lead to better outcomes for everyone involved.
How does making a color palette website cost billions of dollars?
The number of web developers is definitely well under one billion, though that doesn’t really matter.
I’m pretty sure automatically turning non-accessible websites into accessible is an AI-hard problem. It’s definitely not as easy as you imagine.