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Maximising the impact of your learning means you need to reach everyone in your audience. It’s surprising how many learners have issues with access, from colourblindness (8% of males) to approximately 150,000 New Zealanders who have low vision.
Using a colour palette that is accessible ensures that important information is not lost or misunderstood by colourblind people. It is also important to make sure that colour contrasts are high enough for people with other forms of sight disability to interpret your content. This is particularly necessary wherever you have text that people need to read, or detailed diagrams. Content that one person can read with mild difficulty might be completely impossible for someone with low vision.
These tools are helpful for checking that colours are accessible for all learners:
- https://www.tpgi.com/color-contrast-checker/
- Use TPGi’s free colour contrast checker to optimise your content – including text and visual elements – for individuals with colour blindness or low vision impairments. This is a desktop colour contrast tool that can be pinned to your taskbar on your computer for quick checking.
- https://toolness.github.io/accessible-color-matrix/
- This tool is useful for quickly checking brand colours for accessibility against light and dark text or backgrounds.
- https://davidmathlogic.com/colorblind/#%23D81B60-%231E88E5-%23FFC107-%23004D40
- If you want to understand what the world looks like to colourblind people, check out this tool. It also has some useful links to accessible colour palettes.