Display-Safe Colors Work Great With Uncalibrated Displays

Web-safe colors are a thing of the pre-2010 past, when low fidelity displays rendered websites in less than 24 bit color. We use a limited subset of the 256³, #000000 - #FFFFFF CSS2.1 colorset, namely the 16³ #000 - #FFF colorset, defined as well in CSS 2.1. The main problem with colors we face today, is that the subtle nuances that look great on a properly calibrated display are lost on most of the devices our customers use. A smaller palette, with wider steps between its color values solves that issue quite sufficiently.

16 color values per primary color does not seem like a lot, but for UI purposes, it is a lot more than we need. Here are the reasons we stick to this palette:

• Ease of use in development
• Acceptable representation across a wide set of different displays, hue and contrast settings

Fully Tested and Designed for Color Vision Deficiency

Up to 0,4% of all female users and up to 8% of all male users have color vision deficiencies, ranging from mild cases to full achromatomaly. Our colorset was tested for all known types of color vision deficiency with overall very good results. Exception is full achromatomaly, a deficiency that allows users to only see greyscale with distorted contrast and severe blurring. We accept this as a trade-off, fully expecting those users to have enabled accessibility features on their devices anyway, as there is no good way to design for achromatomaly without losing accessibility for everyone who is not afflicted.

It is important to note that for every user with color vision deficiency, the experience of our applications will be different from that of a non afflicted user. The design goal is to provide a colorset that gives good contrast, emphasis and differentiation, even if the desired hues are distorted. This was fully achieved.