Technique G148:Not specifying background color, not specifying text color, and not using technology features that change those defaults

Applicability

Any technology where text and background color are specified separately and browsers can control default colors.

This technique relates to:

Description

The objective of this technique is to make sure that users can read text that is presented over a background. With this technique the author avoids having to do any contrast measures by simply not specifying the text color and not specifying the background. As a result the colors of both are completely determined by the user agent.

Some people who have vision disabilities set their user agent to override certain colors that they have trouble seeing. This technique will help avoid a situation where the user agent and web site conflict with each other over the foreground and/or background colors resulting in the same color for text and background, which would make it invisible for user who set their own colors in their browser or Assistive Technology.

Examples

Example 1

The author specifies neither text color nor background, and does not use CSS. As a result the user can set their browser defaults to provide the colors and contrasts that work well for them.

Other sources

No endorsement implied.

Tests

Procedure

Look in all places that text color can be specified
Check that text color is not specified
Look in all areas that background color or image used as a background can be specified
Check that no background color or image used as a background is specified

Expected Results

# 2 and 4 are true