Level A
Color is not used as the only visual means of conveying information, indicating an action, prompting a response, or distinguishing a visual element.>
Explanation
Colour must not be the only way to identify a bit of content, it must also be identifiable by things like shape, decoration, or associated text. This makes sure that people who cannot see the content, and people who have difficulty telling colours apart, can still identify it.
Responsibilities
- Design
- QA
Requirements
- When rendered in monochrome, information does not disappear;
- Text identified by colour as having special meaning has another indicator – a visible border and label, underline or other visual effect;
- Information graphics and charts that use colour as a key also provide distinctive non-colour differences – hatching patterns or directly applied labels.
Common mistakes
- A form uses only colour to indicate a required field;
- Colour-coding text or backgrounds is used to indicate essential content, pass/fail categorisation, etc;
- Links are only distinguished from plain text by colour and the colour does not vary much from the main body text;
- Text alternatives that do not include information conveyed by colour differences in the original image.