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Re: Contrast Testing in MS Word

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From: Preast, Vanessa
Date: Sep 1, 2017 6:05AM

DAT adds an "accessibility" tab in Word. This tab includes a "button" that can conduct a color contrast analysis. This tool indicates that there is an issue with Word 2013 and 2016 that currently only allows analysis of 1000 characters at a time. (I don't know if this is fixed yet...I downloaded it at least 6-12 months ago) I noticed that the interface is not entirely intuitive. When I intentionally put in two color contrast problems, it identified both, but somehow I managed to skip by the first and then after that, it would never identify that first problem again. For the second problem, it did provide the color contrast and even allowed me to identify and apply a new, more contrast-friendly color. These were nice features. Apparently, it also will not necessarily check the text color against different color backgrounds. This tool seems like a great idea and I hope they further refine it. In the meantime, I've come to the conclusion that I'd end up testing some instances of color using the Colour Contrast Analyser anyway, so why bother with the "automatic" one in DAT.

Paciello Group's Colour Contrast Analyser is very well designed and allows me to check color on two items on the screen including text on websites, documents, powerpoints, software tools, etc. It works on multiple monitors, uses a nice color eyedropper tool, and clearly reports the color contrast ratio and whether it passes the AA and AAA levels. It, however, does not automatically seek out color contrast issues, so the user must first note potential areas of concern and then use the analyser to test.

Hope this helps.
Vanessa