Low contrast vision and how it affects web design

I’ve mentioned before that one of the reasons I started investigating digital accessibility is because I have poor contrast vision – that means that there is stuff I can’t see if the contrast between foreground and background isn’t big enough.
It doesn’t impact me in my day to day life hugely. I can still get around and drive safely (though I do have to wear yellow tinted glasses at dusk), but reading packets and instructions can be a bit of a ‘mare especially if someone has had the bright idea of putting yellow text on an orange background.
But where it does impact me is reading text on screens, typically where there is grey text on a white background.
I’ve tried to think of ways I can demonstrate this to show you how much of a problem is it for me and was struggling until I found this contrast vision test chart.
**Disclaimer: if you struggle to read this chart please don’t take it as a diagnostic because the quality of the image and of the screen will affect how well you can see it, but you might want to ask your optician about it next time you visit them.
So on this chart the contrast of the text decreases from black on white to white on white and how far you can read down the chart will tell you how much of a problem you have with your contrast vision.
I am told by my lovely daughter that there are eight rows on the chart, but I can only see five, the rest just looks white to me. And rows four and five are a real strain for me to read, so much so that if they were on a website I would have to leave and go to a site that I could easily read.
This is one of the web accessibility things that’s a really easy fix – just make your text a couple of shades darker or your background a couple of shades lighter. I bet you won’t notice the difference to your styling, but I for one will thank you for it.
Now have a look at it and see how far down it you can read.