Color Contrast

For users with visual disabilities, whether it is low vision, color blindness, or complete vision loss, the act of utilizing most forms of technology presents more headaches than anything else. People who are blind need text equivalents for the images used on the Web page, because they and their assistive screen reading technology cannot obtain the information from the image. Someone with a visual disability will not find the mouse useful because it requires hand and eye coordination. Instead, this person must navigate the Web page using only the keyboard. These types of struggles are only the beginning of the laundry list of problems that disabled users encounter. If we can move toward a world of technology that faces these issues head on, we can have a more technologically advanced society that is able to access any type information wherever they are.

If a user has low vision, the likelihood of that person being able to utilize your site as is may be very low. There are certain things you can do to improve the usability of your website and make it user friendly for those with disabilities. Most systems come equipped with a High Contrast theme that can changes the contrast of the colors on the screen making it more visible to those with low vision. This feature heightens the color contrast of some text and images on your screen, which in turn makes those items more distinct and easier to identify.

Utilizing this feature is most commonly used on Web pages that use several colors that could make obtaining information difficult. It usually sets the background to a dark color and then uses a brighter color for the text making it pop off of the screen.

High and low vision are disabilities that affect a large number of users in many different ways. As stated above, one of the easiest options when addressing this issue is to adjust the color contrast of the information on your Web page. By doing so, users are able to view the content you have available. This may not seem like a disability, but those who suffer are far greater than those who do not. By making utilizing these the high contrast function on most operating systems, users with disabilities can receive your information at their own convenience.