Knowledge Check feedback font colour
Mar 29, 2018
Against the white background of the knowledge check block, the default feedback font colour of #707070 has a contrast ratio of 4.95:1, meeting WCAG 2.0 AA standards (which are the minimum we need to meet for compliance), but falling quite a bit short of AAA (which would obviously be preferable, because it's much nicer to have as accessible (and legible!) a course as possible).
Is there any chance the default colour for this text could be changed to #313537, the default colour for body text? This would raise the contrast ratio to 12.39:1, which is a great improvement in legibility.
The quiz lesson type suffers from a similar issue, but to a slightly greater degree due to two factors:
- When checking the font colour, it still shows up as #313537, despite it very obviously not being so when actually previewed.
- The feedback is given a light grey background in these lessons, which reduces the contrast further, to the point where it doesn't even pass WCAG AA standards.
Again, even with the grey background, if the text were the same colour as the default body text, the contrast ratio would easily meet WCAG AAA.
Screenshots of the text in its default colour and in the darker body colour attached for your reference.
EDIT 12/12/2023: As articulate have still not fixed this accessibility issue I looked into it further and it looks like my initial report that the feedback text barely managed a AA contrast ratio was mistaken — it doesn't even pass that low requirement.
18 Replies
Hi there, Tim. I really appreciate you taking the time to so thoughtfully bring this up. I'm going to pass your observations on to our team.
We want to help you make accessible courses that can provide a good experience for all leaners, so your feedback is an important part of the process. I'll update this thread with any new information I can share.
Thanks for the response, Crystal, looking forward to any updates.
It's really disappointing to see that this issue was raised a year ago and nothing has changed.
Is there any update on when this and other accessibility issues that don't meet WCAG AA standards are going to be fixed?
Hi Learning andDelopment. Thanks for checking in. I don't have an ETA to share at this point, but we promise to update you as soon as we have more information.
Following this thread as this is an issue for me as well.
Hi Sarah. Thanks for following! We'll let you know if we make any changes to the default feedback font color.
In the meantime, for those following along, you can change the text color of both quiz and knowledge check feedback by selecting the word and using the text formatting tool.
The whole menu in Rise is so hard to see, text fades into the white background.
Just adding my voice in here. Thanks for the suggestion to change the text color, Crystal. I wish we could also change the knowledge check feedback background color as well, though. The contrast is very poor.
We just got our accessibility audit, the colour contrast in in the feedback background failed miserably. I'm moving all my questions to the LMS. Come on Articulate! We have raised this issue ages ago.
I would also like an update related to this issue.
We have the same feedback -- the color of the font against the background is NOT 508 compliant and therefore not considered "accessible". It's very disappointing that solution hasn't been offered by Articulate 4 years later! Please advise if there is any way we can make the font darker and possibly also larger, so that readers with visibility/sight challenges can see it more clearly.
Hi Kimberly,
You can select and format the feedback text just like regular block text and make it bold, change the color, and increase the size.
Unfortunately the formatting needs to be reapplied on an individual question basis,
Articulate, this issue is still unresolved. The feedback text of knowledge check blocks is presented in a light grey, not black, even when black #000000 is selected. And it is not possible to change the grey background, making the contrast too low.
Yes, you can. You should not have to, but you can. The text color appears lighter than what you set it to, however. The background immediately behind the text can also be changed as a work around to improve the contrast and meet accessibility requirements. It will look kind of stupid though (like it's been highlighted white).
Thanks for pointing out that the feedback text colour no longer changes as it should! That means this is even worse than when I first reported it over 5 years ago because it's harder to fix the font colour on our own now. For a workaround, I was able to change the text colour when I made it bold, and it looks like the colour stuck if I then removed the bold formatting.
I've also double-checked the contrast ratio of the default text colour and it looks like I might have used the wrong colour when I was first checking the contrast ratio because this time the results I'm getting are saying it doesn't even pass WCAG AA standards.
This is a really simple problem with significant consequences for anyone required to meet web accessibility standards (which would be most of us I'd expect!), I don't understand why articulate has not fixed this long ago (or why it was ever a problem that needed to be reported) and even made the issue worse.
I'm following this as I would like a solution (and after 5 years I thought there would be one by now) - at the moment it just means that Knowledge Check blocks are un-usable. I suppose a messy workaround would be to import a custom KC block from Storyline?
Hi Fiona,
Thank you for sharing a description and image of what you are experiencing with the feedback text.
When you edit the feedback text color via the color picker, choose black (even though it looks selected). While not ideal, this will update your feedback text while our team looks into this issue.
I'm attaching a quick video to demonstrate.
Hi Fiona!
Good news! We've fixed this issue where the feedback color for Knowledge Check & Quiz is not black (Hex #000000) as indicated. This should now display as black by default, even without reselecting the color (as discussed in Leslie's workaround above).
Let us know if you have any questions or clarifications!