Paying attention to color and color contrast is an important part of making content accessible. This not only includes AgriLife websites, but also presentations, documents, online courses, and social media posts. The AgriLife Brand Guide should also be taken into consideration when choosing a color for content.
Color
Color should not be used as the only visual means of conveying information, indicating an action, prompting a response, or distinguishing a visual element. Be redundant when it comes to visual cues using color. Try to avoid pairing red and green in online or print content. Do not use red/green to indicate no/yes, bad/good, or stop/go, in order to accommodate users with deuteranopia (difficulty distinguishing between red and green), which is the most common type of color blindness.
Contrast
Color and background choices are important for individuals that are colorblind, have low vision, or might otherwise find it difficult to distinguish between text and background colors. Appropriate color contrast also makes it easier to read content in low light or extremely sunny conditions. Make sure there is a contrast ratio of at least 4.5:1 between text and its background, except for large-scale text, incidental text, or logos. One of the easiest ways to confirm a 4.5:1 contrast ratio is to use a color contrast checker, like the color contrast checker from WebAIM or the color contrast checker from Juicy Studio.
ADE Tutorials
Watch our tutorials linked below for a walkthrough of things to consider when using color, and a demonstration of how to use the WebAIM contrast checker to check color contrast in a Canva design.
Accessibility Tutorials Color and Contrast Text Version