RE: Windows high contrast mode.

You can look at SC 1.4.8. Users need a mechanism to change foreground and background colors in blocks of text. There is no requirement for WHCM, and there can be other mechanisms to change colors. Note that other operating systems offer other related mechanisms which work differently (i.e. dark mode). 

There can be other issues such ass colors or CSS gradients that won't show in WHCM. These could (or could not) be a case for 1.4.1 and 1.3.1, respectively.  

Testing pages with WHCM is helpful, but not required for an accessibility audit.

Jan
> -----Original Message-----
> From: BrianD <lists@briandalton.org>
> Sent: Thursday, April 23, 2026 11:00 AM
> To: w3c-wai-ig@w3.org; w3c-wai-ig@w3.org
> Subject: Windows high contrast mode.
> 
> Hi to all.
> 
> 
> 
> I've been asked to research if windows high contrast mode, that is altered in the windows settings, touches off a specific WCAG success
> criterion? If something fails under windows high contrast mode conditions, is it a bug or a best practise?
> 
> Any research I've seen, states that if something fails when this feature is activated, it can fail against many different SC such as: 1.4.1,
> 1.4.3, 1.4.11, and 1.4.7.
> 
> 
> 
> Have you found that to be the case? Or have you come across any resources that say a specific success criterion covers it.
> 
> 
> 
> Any blogs, links or articles you've come across would be helpful here.
> 
> 
> 
> Thanks in advance.
> 
> Best wishes,
> 
> 
> 
> Brian Dalton.
> 
>

Received on Monday, 27 April 2026 10:41:54 UTC