Poor Text Contrast Even With High Contrast Turned On

[StephenHaney]

Hi - I have the High Contrast setting turned on, but is there a way to change the text color from gray to black as I find the contrast very poor. In fact, I assumed I had high contrast turned off and was surprised and disappointed to find it was turned on.

For a platform as good as Canvas, it seems like they missed a big feature here unless I'm not aware of it?

Thanks!

Steve

[kmeeusen]

Hi @StephenHaney 

I agree, and the same is true, but to a lesser degree, of this community platform.

Many accessibility advocates have commented on this for many years, and to little avail (pun intended). Unfortunately, this is something I see on too many web sites.  I do know that generally, Canvas has improved its accessibility over the years, and is committed to an accessible platform. You can learn more at What are the Canvas Accessibility Standards?

Also, you might be interested in joining the Canvas Accessibility focus group in this Community! Navigate to Accessibility.

Perhaps one of the Canvas engineers will join this conversation.

Kelley

[StephenHaney]

Thanks for your quick reply Kelley.

From my background as a marketer and user experience it's a poor design issue and not an accessibility issue.

Grey text on white background is poor contrast vs black text on white background - really a basic fundamental in design - but sometimes the engineers of platforms fail to consult with marketing designers.

Thanks again!

[kmeeusen · Accepted solution]

@StephenHaney 

Yes, but still an accessibility issue! High contrast ratios are an accessibility standard, and we design, or should design, for accessibility.  We don't just design courses, we design good courses, and good courses can be used by almost everybody!

"WCAG 2.1 requires a contrast ratio of at least 3:1 for graphics and user interface components (such as form input borders). WCAG Level AAA requires a contrast ratio of at least 7:1 for normal text and 4.5:1 for large text."

See Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) Overview

Kelley

[DavidKendall]

What is the solution?

[DavidKendall]

So what is the solution? Even with higher contrast selected in my user settings, the text is still too light colored. Is there an actual solution?

[chriscas]

Hi @DavidKendall,

You'll probably need to reach out to either your teacher or your school/institution's Canvas team (usually in the eLearning / IT / Digital Education areas) to get some help on this.  My guess is that either your school/institution has selected a gray color as the default for text for some reason, or your teacher may have copy/pasted content from somewhere where it was gray, or intentionally selected gray as the color.  Unfortunately, since these would all be more local than global Canvas issues, there's not likely to be much else to suggest from the Canvas side anyways.

-Chris

[DavidKendall]

Thanks. I'll reach out to the IT admin.