Color & Meaning

Learners who are blind, low-vision, or colorblind will not be able to differentiate between the content you are trying to emphasize or highlight if you use only color to convey meaning. Problematic examples include:

Using highlighting to indicate required form fields
Directing students to "Pay special attention to the learning concepts in blue"
A pie chart sectioned by color

It's OK to use color to convey meaning as long as that meaning is indicated in some other way as well (italics, bold, a symbol, values, etc.).

Working with Colors & Graphics

Adapted from: Brandeis University, Working with Color and Graphics Links to an external site.

This example is easy to distinguish, but only if you can see the colors as intended:

Original pie chart

pie graph divided by different colors.

Same pie chart as seen with two kinds of colorblindness

monochromacy-achromatopsia greyed out pie graph; difficult to differentiate various parts of the graph. red-blind-protanopia; difficult to differentiate different parts of the pie graph.

Don't use color as the only way to convey content. You should also use direct text labels or changes in shape or texture. In the following example, the graph has its parts directly labeled, instead of relying on color matching with a legend. It also uses texture instead of color, to distinguish its elements. You do not need to do both:

Pie chart using direct labels and texture

pie chart using texture and direct labels

Don’t overthink it

This simple example is accessible as is, because it is high-contrast and directly labeled. Of course, it is an image, so don't forget to add alt text.

To add color to this example, use any colors that are high-contrast to black.

simple black and white directly-labeled pie chart