What are some best practices for choosing accessible color schemes for navigation menus?

1 WCAG contrast and color requirements

WCAG is a set of standards that provide guidelines for making web content accessible to people with disabilities. One of the key aspects of WCAG is ensuring that the text and images on your web pages have sufficient contrast with the background, so that they are legible and distinguishable. WCAG defines contrast ratio as the relative brightness of two colors, and provides minimum levels for different types of content. For navigation menus, you should aim for a contrast ratio of at least 4.5:1 for normal text and 3:1 for large text or icons.

2 Color blindness and color combinations

Another factor to consider when choosing color schemes for navigation menus is color blindness, which affects how some people perceive certain colors or combinations of colors. Color blindness can make it difficult or impossible to distinguish between colors that are close in hue, saturation, or brightness, such as red and green, blue and purple, or yellow and white. To avoid creating confusion or frustration for your color-blind visitors, you should avoid using these colors as the only way to convey information or indicate functionality in your navigation menus. Instead, you should use additional cues, such as text labels, shapes, patterns, or icons, to supplement the color information.

3 Color harmony and aesthetics

Besides accessibility, you also want to choose color schemes that are appealing and consistent with your brand identity and web design. A good way to achieve color harmony and aesthetics is to use a color wheel, which shows the relationships between colors based on their position and distance. A color wheel can help you find complementary, analogous, triadic, or tetradic color schemes, which are combinations of colors that create balance, contrast, or variety in your design. You can also use online tools, such as Adobe Color or Coolors, to generate and test color schemes for your navigation menus.

4 Color testing and evaluation

Once you have chosen your color schemes, you need to test and evaluate them for accessibility and usability. You can use online tools, such as WebAIM Contrast Checker or Color Oracle, to check the contrast ratio of your colors and simulate how they look to people with different types of color blindness. You can also use browser extensions, such as ChromeLens or NoCoffee, to test how your navigation menus work with different zoom levels, screen sizes, or visual impairments. Additionally, you can conduct user testing with real people, especially those with disabilities, to get feedback on your navigation menus and identify any issues or improvements.

5 Color accessibility best practices

To ensure accessibility and inclusivity for all visitors, there are several best practices to consider when choosing color schemes for navigation menus. This includes following WCAG contrast and color requirements for text and images, avoiding colors that are problematic for color-blind people, and using additional cues to convey information or functionality. Additionally, you can use a color wheel or online tools to find color schemes that are harmonious and aesthetic. Lastly, it is important to test and evaluate your color schemes for accessibility and usability with online tools, browser extensions, and user testing. By following these best practices, you can create navigation menus that are not only attractive and intuitive but also accessible.

6 Here’s what else to consider

This is a space to share examples, stories, or insights that don’t fit into any of the previous sections. What else would you like to add?