High text contrast

Silktide measures the difference in color between the text on your pages and the background behind it, and reports text that falls short of the strictest accessibility standard for contrast. This goes further than the legally required minimum, so that people with significant visual impairments can read your content.

Why this matters

The standard contrast minimum helps most readers, but people with more significant sight loss - roughly the vision associated with 20/80 acuity - need a stronger difference between text and background. Meeting the enhanced standard makes your content readable to these users without them needing magnification or other .

This is a goal. Most organizations are not required to meet it, and it may not be practical across an entire website, but it is valuable wherever you can achieve it - especially for content aimed at older audiences or people with disabilities.

How to fix it

Darken the text or lighten the background (or the reverse on dark designs) until the pair meets the required ratio. Each finding shows the two colors, the measured , and the ratio required.
Change the color in your site's stylesheet or theme settings rather than on individual pages, so the fix applies everywhere that style is used.
If meeting the AAA standard is not practical for your design, you can findings, provided you still meet the AA minimum tested by Text contrast.

How Silktide tests this

Examine every piece of visible text on the page, skipping hidden text, text inside SVG graphics, and any elements you have excluded from checking.
Resolve the effective text color and background color, taking transparency and parent elements into account. Only text over a solid background color is measured; text placed over images or gradients cannot be measured automatically.
Calculate the contrast ratio between the two colors.
Report text below the enhanced minimum: 7:1 for regular text, or 4.5:1 for large text. Text counts as large when it is at least 18 points (24 pixels), or at least 14 points (about 19 pixels) with a bold weight (600 or heavier).

Troubleshooting

This check tests WCAG success criterion 1.4.6 (level AAA). The far more commonly required level AA version, success criterion 1.4.3, is tested by Text contrast with lower thresholds (4.5:1 and 3:1). Aim to pass the AA check everywhere first. The two checks share your decisions: approving or ignoring a finding in one applies to the same finding in the other.

Many findings across the whole site

Failing 7:1 is common - many popular color palettes don't reach it. Fix the most-read content first (navigation, body text on key pages), and treat the rest as a design-system decision rather than page-by-page edits.