I was surprised that the accessibility widget on the current website has a feature called “high contrast mode” that does not significantly increase the contrast ratio between the primary text and the background. It also significantly lowers the contrast between the secondary text and the background, sometimes as low as 2.1 (7 is the recommended minimum).
Given the icon they chose, it seems like “dark mode” would be a more appropriate name.
Accessibility compliance widgets are such a shot to the nads for accessibility. Sites drop in an accessibility plugin and never think about accessibility again. You need a real audit, and an accessibility first mindset to build a genuinely accessible website.
A data point to support your claim: The main body text becomes white on dark grey with a contrast ratio of 14.22, compared to the original dark blue text on white background with a contrast ratio of 14.93.
Yup. And the red error text that displays on text input forms has a contrast ratio of just over 2. It seems like they just forgot that this error text needs to be a different color when the background color is dark.
Given the icon they chose, it seems like “dark mode” would be a more appropriate name.