🔗 randoma11y.com is a surprisingly effective minimalist tool designed for web developers, interface designers, and accessibility advocates. Its main purpose is to generate random background/text color pairs that meet the WCAG 2.1 contrast ratio requirements, making them readable for people with visual impairments or low vision.
Upon each refresh, the site presents a new color combination, displaying both HEX values, the exact contrast ratio (e.g. 9.41:1), and a ready-made CSS snippet. Visitors can vote on whether the combination is good or bad, slowly building a kind of crowdsourced archive of aesthetically pleasing and functionally accessible color sets.
The site is delightfully simple. There are no ads, no logins, no distractions. It’s a pure color experiment – a kind of digital sketchbook for designers who care about usability. Built as an open-source project, randoma11y also acts as a statement: accessibility doesn’t need to be complex or costly. Sometimes, all it takes is a thoughtful design approach and a few lines of code.
Randoma11y is especially valuable in a time when digital inclusivity is no longer optional but expected. Many designers still underestimate the impact of poor color contrast on usability. For users with color blindness, visual fatigue, or using mobile screens in bright environments, well-chosen colors make the difference between comprehension and confusion.
This tool is also pedagogically useful – educators in design schools or bootcamps can use it to demonstrate best practices in color usage. Students can explore countless combinations to see how subtle changes in hue or brightness affect contrast and readability.
Moreover, randoma11y fits into a broader category of “a11y-first” tools – resources that consider accessibility not as a final polish, but as a foundation of good design. It reminds us that color theory and technical compliance are not at odds – they can support each other.
Ultimately, this tiny web app offers a powerful reminder that simple ideas can make a lasting difference. Whether you’re building a website, designing an app, or writing documentation, randoma11y helps you make your digital work more inclusive — one color pair at a time.