NEW accessible colour grading for all Invision360 tools

We’re delighted to share that we have launched new colour gradings to help make our digital tools accessible to all.

NEW accessible colour grading for all Invision360 tools

We’re delighted to share that we have launched new colour gradings to help make our digital tools accessible to all.

Since colour vision deficiency alone affects up to 1 in 12 males (8%) and 1 in 200 females (0.5%), we have upgraded our colour gradings to meet the World Wide Web Consortium’s highest level of colour contrast accessibility, AAA.

Why is colour accessibility so important?

The human eye is generally good at distinguishing shapes, patterns and colours, but for a significant number of people, it can be difficult to tell the difference between certain shades and colours.

Colour accessibility is important because it enables people with visual impairments or colour vision deficiencies to view the written and graphic content within our tools in the same way as everyone else.

Essentially, accessibility enables basic colour contrast so that those who struggle with certain colours can see all the content on their screen rather than partial information.

What changes have are we making?

We’ve gone further than meeting the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) minimum levels for colour contrast. Our design team has been busy carefully following the WCAG recommendations to achieve the highest colour accessibility tier, AAA.

Accepted internationally as the gold standard for web accessibility, AAA status is notoriously difficult to achieve and has taken us quite some time to develop and test.

This involved testing each colour against WCAG’s Advanced Perceptual Contrast Algorithm (APCA), taking into account:

- Text colour (perceived lightness difference between text and background)

- Context (ambient light and the intended purpose of the text)

- Spatial properties (font weight and text size)

As big fans of using technology to make processes easier, we found the entire process fascinating.

What differences will you see?

Over the coming weeks, you’ll notice a shift from our existing colours to our NEW colour gradings in our EHCP PEP, and QHA audit tools.

In addition, we’re also launching improved gold, silver and bronze colour gradings within our Annual Review tool.

All the new colours within our tools pass WCAG’s AAA accessibility contrast check. Any text on graphics, whether within a tool or on an external report, will be featured in dark blue.

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