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I had clearly written a dark gray into my CSS. color: #595959. On a white background that color has a contrast of 6.4:1, which comfortably clears the accessibility bar of 4.5:1. Pass. Then I ran an accessibility checker, and a red line appeared. This text has a contrast of 4.04:1, which is insufficient. Expected ratio: 4.5:1. I put in a color that measures 6.4:1, so why is it calling it 4:1? Was the checker wrong? ...

Some people set their screen to maximum contrast. Yellow text on black, white text on blue, that sort of thing. For low-vision users this is the difference between being able to read the text and not; people with migraines or light sensitivity go the other way, using a muted, low-contrast palette. They have one thing in common — the user decides the colors. And the moment they do, a good chunk of the colors we wrote in CSS get ignored. ...