Color Contrast, Line Length, and Scannability

Good reading conditions depend on contrast between text and background, line length that does not strain lateral eye movement, and a visual hierarchy that helps readers move through content at different levels of attention. These are not aesthetic preferences; they are the conditions under which text becomes readable or remains inaccessible to part of your audience.

Color Contrast in Blaskan

Blaskan's body text renders in #2c2c2c (charcoal) on #faf8f5 (bone). This combination achieves a contrast ratio well above the WCAG 2.1 AA threshold of 4.5:1 for normal text. The ratio between these two values is approximately 12:1.

Secondary text (post metadata, category labels, date strings) uses a slightly lighter ink value on the same background. This pair still passes 4.5:1 at normal text sizes.

Interactive elements (links in body text) use a color that is distinguishable from surrounding body text and maintains sufficient contrast against the page background. Visited link states are also differentiated.

For text overlaid on images: If your theme customization places text on top of a featured image (in a page hero, for example), the contrast between the text and the image is your responsibility to verify. Image backgrounds vary enormously. White text on a light image area fails contrast requirements regardless of the theme defaults. If you add overlay text to images, use a dark semi-transparent overlay between the image and the text to ensure consistent contrast.

Checking contrast: Browser developer tools include accessibility inspection panels that report contrast ratios for any text element you select. The standard targets are 4.5:1 for normal text and 3:1 for large text (18pt or 14pt bold and above).

Line Length

Long lines are harder to read. When a line is too long, the reader's eye must travel far from the end of one line back to the beginning of the next, and losing your place mid-paragraph becomes common.

Blaskan's content column is constrained to keep line length within the 55 to 75 character range that is generally recommended for comfortable reading. This is measured in character units (the CSS ch unit), not pixels, so the line length is approximately consistent across font sizes.

At the desktop breakpoint, the main content column has a maximum width. Very wide monitors do not extend the content column to fill the viewport. Instead, the layout centers with visible side margins. This is intentional.

At mobile sizes: The full viewport width is used, minus small margins. On a 375px wide device, body text at 17px renders approximately 50 to 60 characters per line depending on the specific characters. This is within the acceptable range. Very large text sizes (24px+) may produce shorter lines at mobile widths, but this is less problematic because larger text sizes are typically used for headings where line length conventions differ.

Visual Hierarchy and Scannability

Scannability is the ability to move quickly through a page, picking up the structure and key points without reading every word. It depends on visual hierarchy: some elements are clearly more prominent than others, and the prominence corresponds to their importance.

Blaskan establishes hierarchy through:

Heading size and weight: H1 through H6 descend in size clearly enough that the level is unambiguous. The H1 (page or post title) is the largest text element on the page. Each subsequent level is smaller. Font weight distinguishes headings from body text.

White space between sections: Vertical space above headings is larger than the space below them, which groups each heading with the content that follows rather than with the content that precedes it. This is a typographic convention that aids scanning.

Metadata styling: Post metadata (dates, author, categories) is visually lighter than body text. It is present for those who want it but does not compete with the heading or opening paragraph.

List formatting: Unordered and ordered lists use consistent indentation and spacing. Each list item is visually distinct from the next. Dense lists (many short items) are more scannable than long paragraphs.

What Degrades Scannability

Certain content patterns undermine the hierarchy:

• Bolding entire paragraphs rather than specific terms
• Using H1 inside post content (there is already an H1 as the page title; a second one creates ambiguity)
• Inline formatting applied to every sentence rather than to genuinely exceptional content
• Very long paragraphs (more than 6 to 8 lines) with no visual break

None of these are Blaskan-specific issues. They appear in all themes. Blaskan's design maintains its hierarchy when content is structured consistently; it cannot compensate for content that imposes its own conflicting structure.

For skip link and focus-related accessibility, see skip links, focus, and reading order. For pattern analysis of column widths and layout density, see the pattern bench.