Increase Contrast

By: Carmen Willings
teachingvisuallyimpaired.com
Updated June 17, 2025
Many students with low vision—or any usable vision—benefit significantly from high-contrast materials. Contrast plays a key role in visual accessibility, making it easier to distinguish text, objects, and boundaries. Effective contrast design can reduce visual fatigue, support sustained engagement, and increase independence in accessing learning materials.

Why Contrast Matters

High contrast allows the eye to more easily detect edges and details. This is particularly important for students with central field loss, reduced acuity, or contrast sensitivity. Materials with poor contrast may appear faded, washed out, or illegible—especially in dim lighting or under conditions of glare. 

​General Guidelines

  • Use dark text on a light background (e.g., black on white or light yellow) or light text on a dark background (e.g., white or yellow on black).
  • Avoid color-on-color combinations (e.g., red on green, blue on purple) unless the contrast ratio is sufficiently high.
  • When aesthetics or branding call for color, limit decorative or colored fonts to headlines or titles, and prioritize legibility for body text.
  • Black and white contrast remains the most universally accessible and easiest to reproduce across devices and print materials.

​Helpful Techniques and Tools

Background Enhancements
  • Place a dark blotter or dark construction paper under a worksheet to reduce brightness from white desks and to frame the page visually.
  • Use non-patterned backgrounds when text or activities are presented on a tray or table.
  • Trays with solid contrasting colors can help contain manipulatives and focus the student's attention on the activity area.
Polarity Reversal
  • Encourage students to experiment with reverse contrast settings on digital devices and electronic magnifiers (e.g., white text on black background), which can reduce glare and improve reading comfort for some individuals.
Color Overlays
  • Transparent acetate filters can be laid over pages to darken text and enhance print-to-background contrast. Yellow is often preferred, but overlays are available in many colors. Preferences may vary, so trialing different options is important.
  • Some students with light sensitivity or visual stress benefit from overlays even when contrast is already high.
Writing Tools
  • Use 20/20 pens or felt-tip markers in black or bold colors for enhanced visibility. These create a thick, dark line that doesn't smudge.
  • Allow students to use mechanical pencils, which don’t dull like standard pencils and offer consistent line quality.
  • For erasable writing, the Faber-Castell #8B pencil is recommended. It offers a soft, bold line and erases cleanly.
  • Colored markers can be used to highlight or organize notes—helpful for visual scanning.
Line and Place-Finding Aids
  • Line guides, page markers, and typoscopes can assist students with tracking lines of print. Typoscopes are especially helpful for isolating key information by masking surrounding text.
  • Highlighter strips add both visual emphasis and increased contrast, which can help maintain place while reading.
Writing Paper with Enhanced Contrast
  • Use bold line paper, available in wide-ruled formats, music notation, graph paper, and writing lines. These papers feature darker lines and larger spaces to support proper alignment and legibility.
  • Specialty paper can also reduce frustration and improve handwriting posture.

​Environmental Considerations

  • Reduce glare by avoiding glossy surfaces, using overhead lighting sparingly, or placing students away from bright windows.
  • Use matte-finish paper and avoid laminating materials unless necessary.
  • Provide adjustable task lighting when appropriate, ensuring light is directed at the work surface without creating reflections.

​Digital Contrast Support

  • Use high-contrast themes on computers and tablets.
  • Ensure students can adjust brightness, text/background color schemes, and font boldness.
  • Offer content in formats that allow for customization, such as Word documents or accessible PDFs.
​Contrast needs vary based on the student’s diagnosis, lighting conditions, and fatigue levels. It is essential to evaluate contrast preferences through direct observation and student feedback. What works well one day may not be effective the next, so flexibility and consistent re-evaluation are key to ensuring ongoing accessibility.
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