2.1 Information conveyed with colour must be available without colour
The New Zealand Web Standards 2.0 were released in March 2009 and replace the previous version, the New Zealand Government Web Standards 1.0 (below). See Meeting the standards for more information.
The Standard
2.1 Ensure that all information conveyed with colour is also available without colour. This applies principally to navigation labels and error messages.
Guide to this standard
This applies to all content whether done in CMS, templates or completely hand coded sites.
- Use white text with caution.
- Red text, which is often used for important messages, may not be as prominent for a colour-blind person or someone using a black and white monitor. In this case, you should reinforce the message by emphasis <em> or a symbol like "*".
- Testing should be undertaken on an approved subset of form pages, one of which is a homepage. This will be the basis for testing when a compliance audit is undertaken on an agency site.
Note: 'Homepage' is defined in the Glossary of Key Concepts.
Related Standard
This standard covers the W3C WAI checkpoint 2.1 for NZ government agencies.
Rationale for this standard
People who are visually-impaired, including colour blindness, may not perceive differences in colour. Users with browsers that do not support colour or do not support colour well will also be disadvantaged.
