The main purpose of the HexTo Color Harmonies tab is to help you discover and generate aesthetically pleasing color combinations based on a single base color. It automatically calculates and displays various harmonious palettes, making it easier to create visually consistent and appealing designs for any project.

To generate color harmonies, first input your desired base color into the main color input field at the top of the page. Then, navigate to the "Harmonies" tab. HexTo will instantly calculate and display several types of color harmonies (Monochromatic, Analogous, Complementary, Triadic, Tetradic, Split-Complementary) derived from your chosen base color.

Yes, for certain harmony types like "Monochromatic," you can adjust the number of shades displayed. Look for a dropdown or input field (e.g., labeled "Shades" or "Count") within that harmony block. Changing this value will dynamically update the number of colors in the generated monochromatic palette.

Each generated harmony row includes a "Copy All" button (often represented by a copy icon). Clicking this button will copy all the color codes within that specific harmony row to your clipboard. You can then easily paste these values into your CSS, design software, or documentation to apply them directly to your project.

In design, a color harmony refers to the arrangement of colors in a way that is visually pleasing and effective. These combinations are typically based on established color theory principles and the relationships between colors on the color wheel. Harmonious palettes create a sense of balance, unity, and visual appeal, guiding the viewer's eye and conveying specific moods or messages.

A monochromatic color scheme uses different variations (tints, tones, and shades) of a single hue. For example, if your base color is blue, a monochromatic scheme would include lighter blues, darker blues, and desaturated blues. This creates a subtle, cohesive, and sophisticated look, often used when you want to achieve a sense of calm, unity, or depth without strong color contrasts.

An analogous color scheme consists of three or more colors that are located next to each other on the color wheel. For example, blue, blue-green, and green. These colors typically blend well together because they share a common dominant hue, creating a serene, comfortable, and harmonious visual flow. They are often used to create a sense of unity and natural transitions.

A complementary color scheme uses two colors that are directly opposite each other on the color wheel (e.g., red and green, blue and orange, yellow and purple). This pairing creates a strong visual contrast and high impact, making each color appear more vibrant. Complementary schemes are ideal for drawing attention, highlighting key elements, creating calls to action, or when a dynamic and energetic feel is desired in a design.

A triadic color scheme uses three colors that are equally spaced around the color wheel, forming an equilateral triangle. For instance, red, yellow, and blue form a primary triadic scheme. This type of harmony is vibrant and offers strong visual contrast while maintaining balance and richness. It's often considered a good choice for designs that need to be colorful and engaging without being overwhelming, suitable for logos, illustrations, or marketing materials.

Both Tetradic and Split-Complementary schemes offer more complexity than simpler harmonies:

• Split-Complementary: This scheme uses a base color and the two colors adjacent to its direct complement on the color wheel. For example, if your base color is blue, its complement is orange, so a split-complementary scheme would use blue, yellow-orange, and red-orange. It provides a strong visual contrast similar to a complementary scheme but with less tension and more versatility.
• Tetradic (Rectangular): This is a highly rich and complex scheme that uses two complementary pairs, forming a rectangle on the color wheel. For example, blue and orange paired with red and green. It offers a wide range of colors and can be very striking, but it is also the most challenging harmony to balance effectively, requiring careful distribution of colors to avoid visual chaos.

The primary purpose of HexTo's Contrast Grid tab is to help designers and developers evaluate the readability and accessibility of their color combinations. By calculating the contrast ratio between foreground (e.g., text) and background colors, it ensures that your content meets established accessibility standards, making it legible for a wider audience, including those with visual impairments.

To check the contrast ratio, first input your main color into the primary input field at the top of the page. Then, navigate to the "Contrast Grid" tab. HexTo will automatically display the contrast of your main color against pure black and pure white backgrounds. For custom checks, use the "Custom Background Color" input field to enter any other color, and the tool will instantly show the contrast ratio and compliance results for that pair.

The contrast ratio is a numerical value representing the difference in luminance (light intensity) between two colors, ranging from 1:1 (no contrast) to 21:1 (black on white).

• WCAG AA (Level Double-A): This is the minimum accessibility standard for web content.
  • Normal Text: Requires a contrast ratio of at least 4.5:1.
  • Large Text: Requires a contrast ratio of at least 3:1.
• WCAG AAA (Level Triple-A): This is an enhanced standard for even better readability.
  • Normal Text: Requires a contrast ratio of at least 7:1.
  • Large Text: Requires a contrast ratio of at least 4.5:1.

Yes, within the visual preview area for custom color pairs, you will find a "switch" icon or button. Clicking this allows you to quickly reverse the foreground and background colors. This is useful for seeing how the contrast ratio changes when your text color becomes the background and vice versa, helping you find optimal combinations.

WCAG defines "large text" as text that is at least 18pt (or 24px) or text that is at least 14pt (or 18.66px) and bold. All other text is considered "normal text." Large text requires a lower contrast ratio because its increased size makes it inherently easier to read. HexTo provides separate compliance checks for both categories to ensure comprehensive accessibility evaluation.

Color contrast is crucial for web accessibility because it directly impacts the readability and usability of content for a diverse range of users. Individuals with low vision, color blindness, or age-related vision changes rely heavily on sufficient contrast to differentiate between text and its background. Good contrast also benefits users in challenging viewing conditions, such as bright sunlight or on low-quality screens, making your website usable and inclusive for everyone.

The core principle behind WCAG contrast guidelines is to ensure that visual content, particularly text and interactive elements, is perceivable to users. The guidelines primarily focus on the luminance contrast ratio, which measures the difference in brightness between two colors. They aim to provide a minimum level of contrast to make content readable, regardless of a user's visual abilities or environmental conditions, rather than relying solely on hue or saturation differences.

If your colors fail the contrast check, consider these strategies to improve readability:

• Adjust Lightness/Darkness: Slightly increase the lightness of the foreground color or decrease the lightness of the background color (or vice versa). This is often the most effective and least disruptive change.
• Increase Saturation: Sometimes, increasing the saturation of one of the colors can subtly improve contrast without changing the hue.
• Add a Subtle Border/Outline: For text, a thin, contrasting border or text shadow can sometimes provide enough additional contrast.
• Use a Different Shade: Instead of changing the hue entirely, try a slightly darker or lighter shade of your existing brand colors.
• Swap Foreground/Background: Test if reversing the colors (making the foreground the background and vice versa) yields a better result.

No, WCAG contrast guidelines extend beyond just text. They also apply to "non-text contrast," which includes:

• Graphical Objects: Parts of graphics required to understand the content (e.g., lines in a graph, essential parts of an infographic).
• User Interface Components: Visual information required to identify user interface components and states (e.g., borders of input fields, checkboxes, radio buttons, and the visual state of a button when hovered or focused).

Yes, there are a few exceptions to WCAG contrast requirements:

• Incidental: Text or images of text that are part of a decorative component, are purely decorative, or are not visible to anyone.
• Logotypes: Text that is part of a brand name or logo.
• Part of a Picture: Text that is part of a picture that contains significant other visual content.
• Inactive User Interface Components: Components that are not interactive (e.g., a disabled button).
• Purely Decorative: Elements that serve no functional purpose and are purely for aesthetic decoration.

The primary function of HexTo's Color Tokens tab is to help you define, organize, and manage your color values as reusable "tokens." These tokens abstract specific color values into semantic names (e.g., --brand-primary, color-text-body), allowing for centralized control and easy distribution of your color palette across design and development teams within a design system.

To add a new color token, first ensure you have the desired color selected in the main input field at the top of the page. The "Current Color" swatch in the "Add New Token" section will reflect this. Next, type a descriptive name for your token (e.g., --primary-500, brand-red) into the "Token Name" input field. Finally, click the " Add Token" button to add it to your list of color tokens.

HexTo supports exporting your defined color tokens into several popular formats, making them versatile for various development environments:

• CSS Variables: (.css files, e.g., --color-primary: #3498db;)
• SCSS/Sass Variables: (.scss or .sass files, e.g., $color-primary: #3498db;)
• JSON: (.json files, e.g., { "colorPrimary": "#3498db" })
• JavaScript (ES Modules): (.js files, e.g., export const colorPrimary = '#3498db';)

Yes, you have full control over your token list. To remove an individual color token, simply click the trash can icon () next to that specific token in the "Your Color Tokens" list. If you wish to remove all tokens at once, you can click the "Clear All Tokens" button below the list.

Design tokens are the fundamental building blocks of a design system. They are named entities that store design decisions, such as color values, typography scales, spacing units, and more. Instead of hard-coding these values directly into designs or code, tokens act as a single source of truth. Their importance for design systems lies in ensuring consistency, scalability, and efficiency across multiple products, platforms, and teams. When a token's value changes, all instances referencing that token update automatically.

Color tokens significantly improve collaboration by establishing a shared, unambiguous language for color. Designers define colors using token names (e.g., primary-brand-color), and developers implement them using the same token names in code. This eliminates guesswork, reduces miscommunication, prevents inconsistencies, and ensures that design intent is accurately translated into the final product, fostering a more harmonious and efficient workflow.

CSS Variables (officially called Custom Properties) are a powerful way to implement color tokens directly in CSS. Their benefits include:

• Dynamic Theming: Easily switch themes (e.g., light/dark mode) by changing variable values in a root element.
• Runtime Changes: Values can be updated dynamically via JavaScript, enabling interactive and responsive styling without needing to recompile CSS.
• Easier Maintenance: Update a color in one place, and it propagates everywhere it's used, reducing repetitive code and potential errors.
• Readability: Semantic token names make CSS more readable and understandable.

The choice depends on your project needs:

• SCSS/Sass Variables ($variable-name): These are pre-processor variables. They are processed and compiled into static CSS values before your website is deployed. Use them for:
  • Complex calculations or logic that needs to happen at compile time.
  • When you need to generate multiple variants of CSS based on a single source.
  • Projects where browser support for CSS Variables is a concern (though modern browser support is excellent).
• CSS Variables (--variable-name): These are native browser features. They exist and can be manipulated at runtime in the browser. Use them for:
  • Dynamic theming (light/dark mode, user-selectable themes).
  • Creating components that can adapt to their context (e.g., passing a color token from a parent to a child component).
  • Simpler, more direct variable usage without a build step.

Color tokens are fundamental for efficient theming and dark mode. Instead of directly assigning background-color: #FFFFFF; or color: #000000;, you assign token names like background-color: var(--color-background-default); and color: var(--color-text-primary);. To switch themes (e.g., from light to dark to dark mode), you simply change the underlying values of these tokens within a theme-specific CSS block (often applied to the body or html element). This allows for a global theme change with minimal code modification, ensuring consistency across your entire application.

The primary purpose of HexTo's Vision Simulator tab is to help designers and developers understand how their visual content is perceived by individuals with various color vision deficiencies (commonly referred to as color blindness). By applying filters that mimic different types of vision, it allows you to test and adjust your designs to ensure they are accessible and usable for a wider, more inclusive audience.

Using the Vision Simulator is very simple. First, ensure your desired color is set in the main input field at the top of the page. Then, navigate to the "Vision Simulator" tab. From the "Select Vision Deficiency" dropdown, choose the type of color vision deficiency you want to simulate (e.g., Protanopia, Deuteranopia). The preview area, which includes your current color swatch, sample text, and sample images, will instantly update to show how these elements appear under that specific vision condition.

HexTo's Vision Simulator provides comprehensive coverage of common color vision deficiencies:

• Protanopia (Red-Green Color Blindness): Complete absence of red cones, leading to difficulty distinguishing red and green, and reds appearing darker.
• Deuteranopia (Red-Green Color Blindness): Complete absence of green cones, also leading to difficulty distinguishing red and green, but with reds appearing less dark than in protanopia.
• Tritanopia (Blue-Yellow Color Blindness): Complete absence of blue cones, making it hard to distinguish blue from green and yellow from violet.
• Achromatopsia (Total Color Blindness): A rare condition where individuals see only shades of gray, black, and white.
• Protanomaly (Weak Red): A milder form of red-green deficiency where red perception is weakened.
• Deuteranomaly (Weak Green): The most common type, a milder form of red-green deficiency where green perception is weakened.
• Tritanomaly (Weak Blue): A milder form of blue-yellow deficiency where blue perception is weakened.

The HexTo Vision Simulator utilizes SVG (Scalable Vector Graphics) feColorMatrix filters. These are powerful mathematical transformations applied to the colors of the elements within the preview area. Each type of color vision deficiency has a specific color matrix that accurately remaps the RGB values of the original colors, mimicking how the human eye with that particular condition would perceive them. This ensures a realistic simulation without altering the original image data.

Color blindness, more accurately termed color vision deficiency (CVD), is a condition where an individual perceives colors differently from someone with normal color vision. It's not typically a form of "blindness" in the sense of seeing only black and white (except in very rare cases like achromatopsia). Instead, it usually involves difficulty distinguishing between certain shades or hues, most commonly red and green, due to genetic variations affecting the light-sensitive cone cells in the retina.

Color vision deficiencies are surprisingly common, affecting a significant portion of the population. Approximately 1 in 12 men (about 8%) and 1 in 200 women (about 0.5%) worldwide have some form of color vision deficiency. Red-green deficiencies (protanopia and deuteranopia, and their milder 'anomaly' forms) are by far the most prevalent types. This genetic predisposition means that designing for CVD is crucial for inclusive digital experiences.

Designing for users with color vision deficiencies is essential for creating truly inclusive and accessible digital products. If a design relies solely on color to convey important information (e.g., "red for error, green for success"), a significant portion of your audience might miss critical cues. By considering CVD, you ensure that all users can understand and interact with your content effectively, improving usability, reducing frustration, and complying with accessibility guidelines.

To make your designs more accessible for color-blind users:

• Don't Rely on Color Alone: Always use a secondary indicator in addition to color (e.g., text labels, icons, patterns, textures, underlines for links).
• Ensure Sufficient Contrast: Use a contrast checker (like HexTo's Contrast Grid) to ensure high contrast between text and background, especially for essential information.
• Use Distinct Hues and Values: Even for colors that are generally distinguishable, ensure there's enough difference in their lightness/darkness (value) and saturation, not just their hue.
• Provide Customizable Options: If feasible, allow users to choose their own color themes or adjust contrast settings.
• Test with Simulators: Regularly use tools like HexTo's Vision Simulator to experience your design through different CVD filters.

Color blindness exists on a spectrum of severity, it's not an all-or-nothing condition. Most people with CVD have a mild form (anomalous trichromacy), where their cone cells are present but function abnormally, leading to a weakened perception of certain colors (e.g., Protanomaly, Deuteranomaly, Tritanomaly). More severe forms (dichromacy, like Protanopia, Deuteranopia, Tritanopia) involve the complete absence of one type of cone cell. The rarest and most severe form is achromatopsia, where individuals see no color at all.