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a practical example is when deciding what colour to pick for 'section titles' of long bullet-point text (has sub-bullet points also) on onenote, g-docs, and most anywhere

so im hoping for a software existing or one day that auto-picks a good colour based the colors already on the page such as when there are blue links all over the screen

one post seems to have info on how to measure contrast so hopefully a software person/team would one day make this basic tool, i've wanted it for years and years and decades already

many (80%+) don't even care about UX or anything related to good design, they just don't care or noticed. but for those that do, now one of the common solutions that 'most' ppl do is they 'bold' headings, but 'most' ppl are know essentially nothing on UX, and im sure that almost anyone that is experienced & specialied in this area of clear visuals and presentation of info understand this

we can evidence this as well, in this post about best blackground colour for black/white text, there are info that can be helpful to lead into what would be good contrast.

even without evidence, it's obvious that a darker black (bold) nearby to other blacks (text) is very very hard to see, and does not distinctly stand out (with rare exceptions such as there was one =)

now i luv ux, all forms of design is a favourite of mines, and it's sad that i haven't ever asked any questions on this site, and only have read stuff

i really want to know the answer because i've been wanting to know this for .. for forever. and because it has such a practical and signficant use. take this onenote page, i've text and links everywhere and i can't see clearly what's the most important thing on the page, because sometimes there many important things

but there's just no good markers or signalers that very very clearly separates all the many sections -- there's just too too MUCH info everywhere on the entire screen, and all the info matters enough to keep in my notes

and i can't see what im looking for

colour is so SO useful, and it's unbelievable, that when colour is used in ALL media (for ALL kinds of reasons such as emotions, etc.), we still as a society are not using colour in 'section headings' or just anything related to text in all these web pages on the Web, and we're in 2017.... already

it's really sad

colour is even used for they key goal of clarity in the actually good games, as one of many examples

it's all about clarity

even outside of ux, but design applies to all things, to make everything better

any clarification, please ask

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    About contrast you have an answer. About colors: you seem to imply that more colors are better for UX. It's not true. Color is information and information carries cognitive load and visual clutter. It's obvious that color is an extremely powerful tool but it must applied carefully or it will just add noise. Also don't forget color blind people and people with accessibility issues.
    – Adriano Repetti
    Jul 16, 2017 at 9:34
  • We're not using too much color in headings because there are centuries of studies to determine when it's both appropriate and visually appealing. We use it, sparkly. We already have links, primary and secondary actions, alerts and status. Do you think color for titles in web pages will really add anything to UX? Sometimes but it must be carefully evaluated.
    – Adriano Repetti
    Jul 16, 2017 at 9:44
  • forgot to clarify that too many different colours (specifically maybe.. 7+ would be too many, depends on how the colours are structured and arranged tho,) are of course not good, i just thought it was assumed, i had consider adding this point, but thought it was so basic that i decided against it in the post, it's hard to know all in the info to include, and there's likely no perfect amount of info to include for a wide userbase. would be interested to see scientific evidence/info on how many colours are too many tho @AdrianoRepetti
    – ambw
    Jul 16, 2017 at 17:11
  • not sure how links, buttons, etc. are part of the text itself unless you're referring to how these things already add clutter to the screen, thus adding clutter would just add more, well if that's the case, the biggest and first thing i'd said to keep it short is that at least when it comes to info, the title is the first thing we all would want to see on a page because we want to know what a page is about, and 98% of sites are awfully designed (navbar is not on the side) with rare exceptions - internetingishard.com/html-and-css/responsive-design - smashingmagazine.com
    – ambw
    Jul 16, 2017 at 17:19
  • Yes, it's because of clutter. I agree that title is often one of the most important things in some kind of pages but if you already use color for many other things then it will not stand out. More, it will make everything flat.
    – Adriano Repetti
    Jul 16, 2017 at 17:21

2 Answers 2

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In color theory, the highest contrast is between two colours in opposite ends of the color wheel.

Some examples are;

  • Yellow & violet;
  • red & green, and;
  • orange & blue.

enter image description here

There are many online tools for measuring contrast. Try this one for example. You can enter your foreground and background color and it will tell you the actual contrast and if it's compliant with WCAG 2.0 guidelines.

Bold text is actually harder to read and perceive for users.

However, bold labels resulted in an almost sixty-percent increase in saccade time to move from the label to the input field—from 50ms without bold labels to 80ms with bold labels—with no apparent advantage from the more prominent labeling. Bold labels were more difficult for users to read and perceive—probably because there was more visual confusion between the bold text and the heavy adjacent borders of the input fields. Figure 4 shows the eyetracking data for this test.

Source: Label Placement in Forms

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    Well, green and red are opposites on the colour wheel, but very hard to distinguish for certain kinds of colour blindness...
    – curiousdannii
    Jul 16, 2017 at 10:49
  • That's true. There are always more things to consider like colour blindness as you mention
    – Nick Groeneveld
    Jul 16, 2017 at 10:54
  • Personally, I'd like to see Orange and Blue at most.
    – univalence
    Jul 16, 2017 at 16:38
  • as @curiousdannii says, i also don't believe in color theory (nonscientific) nonsense, would hope that a future answer bases info on actually scientific testing and much more grounded evidence that hopefully been done... such as specifically testing what colour combos are actually more easily visible and clear
    – ambw
    Jul 16, 2017 at 17:24
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    'theory nonsense' but wants answers based on tests...
    – Nick Groeneveld
    Jul 16, 2017 at 17:25
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I was tought at the handdrawing classes ( presentational product renderings and such) that the strongest perceived contrast possible is between black and yellow, rather then between black and white. I would not use this in a powerpoint, though.

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  • This combination is quite common in Germany (maybe because these colors are in their flag?) and I have seen incredibly cool designs using black on yellow, or even yellow on black
    – Devin
    Jul 16, 2017 at 15:54

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