As part of the collective ‘virtual agency’ Uncle Pablo, we were approached by Unilever to review their new brand and work with the agency who created it, to get it to work across all digital channels not just in terms of layouts but specifically to meet web accessibility standards.
My first objective was to consider each brand RGB colour for accessibility. The challenge here was that the high vibrancy of colours didn’t contrast so well. Due to this I had to adjust some colours to work best with the required standards and the brand’s vibrancy.
Once done, I had to find the best combination of colours with high contrast ratios that provided the best accessible options for text and interactions.
An additional factor was to consider the variations of colour blindness. We wanted colours that stood out in every variation so interactions were obvious for every user, despite their individual circumstances.
From here I could create rules around text, backgrounds and interactive elements. I could then develop email, powerpoint, sharepoint and other digital templates with these rules embedded. These subsequently highlighted any flaws in the rules that allowed me to tweak them.
Once these rules were in place I could work further with the brand agency to add the new colours, specs and digital specific rules to the new guidelines, making sure future digital work would remain consistent and with a high level of accessibility.
