“Make sure colours used for meaningful text, graphics, and icons in your printed and digital content are sufficiently contrasted against their respective backgrounds.”
Denis Boudreau – www.inklusiv.ca
Inclusive Speaking Tips
Inclusive Speaking Tip #011
Last updated on July 27, 2022
by Denis Boudreau
How do I go about doing that?
As soon as your content is not purely decorative in nature, but does, in fact, convey information relevant to understanding your message, you must ensure that said content provides a sufficient degree of contrast against its background. This typically applies to text, icons and other visuals that convey significant or meaningful information, not content that is purely decorative. Without such consideration, people who are colourblind will easily miss out on your information.
You can determine if the contrast ratio between your foreground information and its background is sufficient, by running both colours against one another using a colour contrast checker. There are many such tools available for free online. My recommendation is to use Adobe’s Color Contrast Analyzer, and make sure the contrast ratio is at least 4.5 to 1.
Inclusive Professional Speaking model
This tip applies to the Inspired speaker stage.
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About Denis Boudreau
Denis Boudreau is a consultant, trainer, and speaker specializing in digital accessibility and disability inclusion. He works with organizational leaders who want to equip their teams with the skills to create accessible websites and digital products – so no one is left behind. A Certified Professional in Web Accessibility (CPWA), Denis has trained thousands of web professionals over the past 20+ years and delivered hundreds of workshops in both English and French. He has helped leading brands like Netflix, Salesforce, and Victoria’s Secret embed accessibility into their digital strategies, empowering them to meet legal obligations, improve user experience, and connect with more people, more effectively.