Creating A High-Contrast Design System With CSS Custom Properties — Smashing Magazine

Design should never be a trade-off when it comes to creating an accessible web. There are many features coming to the web that will make creating contrast a lot easier. But even though CSS functions such as color-contrast() are only available in Safari behind a flag, we can already do a lot to create contrast in an easy way by using custom properties.

Good Design For Accessibility Shouldn’t Be Hard

When we design, we think about creating something beautiful that enables emotion and can project the philosophy of a brand. We want to reach as many people as we can, but there are times we start struggling to find a way to design something accessible while still respecting the look & feel of a brand. While there might not be an easy way to overcome this when it comes to printed design, we can create better experiences for people on the web by creating small tweaks to our contrast using CSS. I’m not going to lie to you, this does evolve some careful planning and creating a solid design system, but we can do this! Let’s create a design for everybody’s eyes.

Before we really start to take a deep dive into how we can create such a high-contrast system, let’s debunk some of the myths that are still...