Products · Pattern or everyday thing
Websites with low contrast text
Raised as a usability problem by 6 people on Hacker News over 16 years (2011–2026), in 6 threads.
No issue was raised by at least 3 people in 3 threads this year.
No issue was raised by at least 3 people in 3 threads in the last 5 years.
Every issue, all time, most people first
Grey-on-white text has low contrast and is hard to readUnreviewed
20112026- Low-contrast gray text and borders are hard to see, forcing zooming or brightness changes2026-04-07
- Gray text is hard to read, so the user overrides it with CSS2019-03-28
- Very light gray text is hard to read, poor legibility2018-02-21
Unreviewed issues were grouped by machine: Claude Haiku labelled each comment as a usability complaint, named what it's about and summed up the problem in a line, and a small model grouped similar problems. Nobody has checked them by hand. Expect mistakes.
The newest 6 complaints
- Low-contrast gray text and borders are hard to see, forcing zooming or brightness changes2026-04-07
- Gray text is hard to read, so the user overrides it with CSS2019-03-28
- Very light gray text is hard to read, poor legibility2018-02-21
- Gray, thin text has poor contrast, making sites hard to read without custom styling2014-03-16
- Almost-white text on white backgrounds is nearly unreadable2013-02-23
- Gray-on-white text has low contrast and is hard to read2011-04-29