How to Check Website Colors for Accessibility

A website color audit does not have to start with a giant accessibility report. Begin with the color combinations people must actually read and interact with, then test those pairs systematically.

Start with the highest-use color pairs

1. Body text against the main page background.
2. Navigation and footer text.
3. Buttons and the text inside them.
4. Links in normal and hover/focus states.
5. Form labels, hints, errors and validation messages.
6. Text placed over photos, gradients or colored cards.

Use the exact production colors

Copy the hex values from your CSS or sample them from a screenshot of the real interface. Testing a “close enough” color can hide a failure that appears in production.

Fix systems, not isolated pixels

If the same failing color pair appears across many components, change the design token or shared CSS variable when possible. One system-level fix is easier to maintain than dozens of one-off overrides.

Recheck interactive states

Hover, focus, selected, disabled and error states often introduce new color combinations. Include them in the audit instead of testing only the default screen.