I recently discovered that the “check color contrast” feature in the Figma color palette window is not 100% accurate and rounds up the contrast value compared to the WebAim Contrast Checker. This is very concerning and potentially problematic when resolving passing contrast levels among brand colors and accessibility. Warning to designers: be sure to double check your contrast levels and don’t rely on Figma’s tool alone!
Background color: #355F78
Text color: #FDC96E
WebAim Contrast Checker fails at 4.49:1
Contrast Finder fails at 4.49631
Figma passes at 4.5:1
Stark plugin passes at 4.5:1
Figma contrast checker rounds up
Hello everyone,
Thank you all for this feedback and sharing your experiences with the rounding behavior — and especially for explaining why it matters for accessibility and design accuracy.
I checked in with our Product and Engineering teams, and I have some good news to share: They rolled out an update that uses the truncated value to identify whether a color combination meets accessibility guidelines for color contrast instead of a rounded value.
When you have a moment, please refresh the tab you’re working in, and you should see the update reflected right away.
If you’re still noticing discrepancies after you reload, please let us know and we can help troubleshoot.
Please keep the notes coming — we’ll continue keeping the feedback loop open with the folks looking after this feature.
This is also a large concern for me and my team. If accessibility is not a priority for figma we may be forced to choose another option so we can maintain ADA compliance...
Our team uses Figma daily and this issue is of great importance to our team. This issue ““check color contrast” feature in the Figma color palette window is not 100% accurate and rounds up the contrast value” is a problem for our ADA compliance. We would encourage Figma to work on this issue.
Found an issue that makes this even more problematic, I discovered that the checker can display different values in different files. I was checking the contrast ratio of a component in our main component library and it was showing it passed right at 4.5:1. I decided to check it in a different file and it was then reading 4.49:1.
This is a major issue for me as I just finished updating our entire color spectrums and relied on Figma’s built-in tooling to make sure everything was passing. Will now need to recheck everything with a more reliable method.
Hello everyone,
Thank you all for this feedback and sharing your experiences with the rounding behavior — and especially for explaining why it matters for accessibility and design accuracy.
I checked in with our Product and Engineering teams, and I have some good news to share: They rolled out an update that uses the truncated value to identify whether a color combination meets accessibility guidelines for color contrast instead of a rounded value.
When you have a moment, please refresh the tab you’re working in, and you should see the update reflected right away.
If you’re still noticing discrepancies after you reload, please let us know and we can help troubleshoot.
Please keep the notes coming — we’ll continue keeping the feedback loop open with the folks looking after this feature.
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