Recently, the Scratch Team changed the colour scheme for the Scratch website from azure to purple. There are several reasons why this change is just plain silly, but I'll gloss over those for now.

Looking over the w3 organization's accessibility guidelines that the Scratch Team are themselves using, they stipulate that the contrast between small text and the background should be at least 4.5:1. (Though, ideally, it should be at least 7:1.) Here's a website for checking the contrast ratio between two colours. (Thanks to @gilbert_given_189 for the link! Alternatively, here's a spreadsheet to calculate the contrast ratio.)

I discovered a royal blue colour, like #0066CC can maintain good contrast ratios (e.g. around 5.57), compared to the purple colour scheme's 4.67. They look far better in my opinion, and will be more familiar to the vast majority of users who are used to the original colour scheme. Here's a comparison of the three navbars: from top to bottom, the original, the current purple scheme and my proposed royal blue scheme.



This will improve the aesthetic of the website tremendously. It would fit in better with the sticky icons, post headers etc. that the Scratch Team haven't yet changed because they're just two different shades of the same colour. It would be much less of a shock to the kids upset that their Scratch is purple now while meeting the accessibility criteria more thoroughly.

I know the Scratch Team has been thinking about a more accessible colour scheme for a while, but I think the Scratch Team should seriously consider a royal blue colour scheme instead of the purple one currently in use.

Edit: Alternative colour #2173D6

Does this work with the black and white colourblindness (the one moss has)

Crispydogs101 wrote:

Does this work with the black and white colourblindness (the one moss has)

It's darker than the current purple colour, so I don't see why not

w3schools is inaccurate and i hate it

rdococ wrote:

Crispydogs101 wrote:

Does this work with the black and white colourblindness (the one moss has)

It's darker than the current purple colour, so I don't see why not

Huh. This way better than switching back to blue. And might be easy to code in. I'll just ask the scratch team for feedback and if they think it's a good idea or what could be better.

Yes I agree that is really smart and looks great!
Also very easy to read.

When you pick a better color scheme than the Scratch Team

rdococ wrote:

This will improve the aesthetic of the website tremendously.

I disagree – it doesn't match the rest of Scratch's color scheme very well. One of the reasons why purple was chosen is that it was already used in Scratch (looks blocks).

I think something more similar to the old blue would look better. #3373cc is a darker version of the old blue (motion block) color that has about the same contrast as the new purple. Scratch already uses it in some places. It would look like this on the website:

Maximouse wrote:

rdococ wrote:

This will improve the aesthetic of the website tremendously.

I disagree – it doesn't match the rest of Scratch's color scheme very well. One of the reasons why purple was chosen is that it was already used in Scratch (looks blocks).

I think something more similar to the old blue would look better. #3373cc is a darker version of the old blue (motion block) color that has about the same contrast as the new purple. Scratch already uses it in some places. It would look like this on the website:

Isn't that essentially what the OP calls “royal blue”? If we need to be that specific on colors, let me tell you that the navbar color (#855cd6) is different than the Looks color (#9966ff)

Speaking of colors, here's some stats of colors and their contrast:

Navbar purple on white :: #855cd6 // 4.66:1
Looks purple on white :: #9966ff // 3.68:1
Royal blue on white :: #0066CC // 5.56:1
Motion blue on white :: #3373cc // 4.7:1
...

Wait… I got 5.56:1 instead of 7.26? Explain the discrepancy!

gilbert_given_189 wrote:

Maximouse wrote:

rdococ wrote:

This will improve the aesthetic of the website tremendously.

I disagree – it doesn't match the rest of Scratch's color scheme very well. One of the reasons why purple was chosen is that it was already used in Scratch (looks blocks).

Isn't that essentially what the OP calls “royal blue”? If we need to be that specific on colors, let me tell you that the navbar color (#855cd6) is different than the Looks color (#9966ff)

The two colours are similar enough that I don't mind either one.

gilbert_given_189 wrote:

Speaking of colors, here's some stats of colors and their contrast:

Navbar purple on white :: #855cd6 // 4.66:1
Looks purple on white :: #9966ff // 3.68:1
Royal blue on white :: #0066CC // 5.56:1
Motion blue on white :: #3373cc // 4.7:1
...

Wait… I got 5.56:1 instead of 7.26? Explain the discrepancy!

Darn, it looks like I did the calculations wrong. I've updated the spreadsheet and original post with corrected values, though they're somehow still a bit off from the contrast ratios you got. Either way, the proposed colour is still comfortably accessible and easier on the eyes than purple in my opinion

Edit: The formulas are correct now.

I really like this.I think it looks better, maybe even better than the old blue, and is less intrusive while being high contrast.if all the text isn’t changed to this like the purple I think it’s be good.

So you're saying they shouldn't have made it lighter in the first place in 2015?
They literally could have used the old 2.0 color and darkened it, or made that the default.

gilbert_given_189 wrote:

(#9)
Isn't that essentially what the OP calls “royal blue”? If we need to be that specific on colors, let me tell you that the navbar color (#855cd6) is different than the Looks color (#9966ff)

The navbar color is actually the secondary Looks color (dropdown fill color).

I think the ST knows what they're doing.

Elijah999999 wrote:

I think the ST knows what they're doing.

I mean, they seem to be very serious on it… (in fact suggesting to revert the colors back is on TOLORS)

Didn't they do a bunch of research to find the “perfect” color(putting it in quotes due to it being subjective and having differences based off types of colorblindness)
I personally prefer the new purple, it's a lot less stimulating IMO, and k find it much better looking. Maybe it could be a theme brought up in the themes topic?

GIitchInTheMatrix wrote:

Didn't they do a bunch of research to find the “perfect” color(putting it in quotes due to it being subjective and having differences based off types of colorblindness)
I personally prefer the new purple, it's a lot less stimulating IMO, and k find it much better looking. Maybe it could be a theme brought up in the themes topic?

If “a bunch of research” meant “copying the color from the Looks block”, I think my perception of “research” is of higher quality than whoever thought of changing the navbar color to purple. (Is this… a roast?)

gilbert_given_189 wrote:

GIitchInTheMatrix wrote:

Didn't they do a bunch of research to find the “perfect” color(putting it in quotes due to it being subjective and having differences based off types of colorblindness)
I personally prefer the new purple, it's a lot less stimulating IMO, and k find it much better looking. Maybe it could be a theme brought up in the themes topic?

If “a bunch of research” meant “copying the color from the Looks block”, I think my perception of “research” is of higher quality than whoever thought of changing the navbar color to purple. (Is this… a roast?)

Correct me if im wrong, but theybdidnt spend many months simply looking at a look block to update the site.
If your quality level of a point in an argument is a quick look over of a coincidence and ignoring many trials they have done, to hope that those you're providing an argument against don't know, you may have low standards for points.
And if you thought it based off of a few posts in some random thread, maybe you don't have any perception of research.

GIitchInTheMatrix wrote:

gilbert_given_189 wrote:

GIitchInTheMatrix wrote:

Didn't they do a bunch of research to find the “perfect” color(putting it in quotes due to it being subjective and having differences based off types of colorblindness)
I personally prefer the new purple, it's a lot less stimulating IMO, and k find it much better looking. Maybe it could be a theme brought up in the themes topic?

If “a bunch of research” meant “copying the color from the Looks block”, I think my perception of “research” is of higher quality than whoever thought of changing the navbar color to purple. (Is this… a roast?)

Correct me if im wrong, but theybdidnt spend many months simply looking at a look block to update the site.
If your quality level of a point in an argument is a quick look over of a coincidence and ignoring many trials they have done, to hope that those you're providing an argument against don't know, you may have low standards for points.
And if you thought it based off of a few posts in some random thread, maybe you don't have any perception of research.

I was being sarcastic there, but I agree that it might be a coincidence.

gilbert_given_189 wrote:

GIitchInTheMatrix wrote:

Didn't they do a bunch of research to find the “perfect” color(putting it in quotes due to it being subjective and having differences based off types of colorblindness)
I personally prefer the new purple, it's a lot less stimulating IMO, and k find it much better looking. Maybe it could be a theme brought up in the themes topic?

If “a bunch of research” meant “copying the color from the Looks block”, I think my perception of “research” is of higher quality than whoever thought of changing the navbar color to purple. (Is this… a roast?)

Whew, you don't have to roast the Scratch Team! You make a good point - what kind of research did the Scratch Team do to reach that shade of purple? I'm no expert, but nothing about vision impairment or colour-blindness leads me to think that white on purple is a particularly accessible colour scheme compared to white on dark blue.

GIitchInTheMatrix wrote:

Correct me if im wrong, but theybdidnt spend many months simply looking at a look block to update the site.
If your quality level of a point in an argument is a quick look over of a coincidence and ignoring many trials they have done, to hope that those you're providing an argument against don't know, you may have low standards for points.
And if you thought it based off of a few posts in some random thread, maybe you don't have any perception of research.

Unfortunately, there's good reason to believe that the Scratch Team didn't do their research properly. Colour-blind people are saying that it's hard to see purple links amongst black/grey text or on grey backgrounds, and the update itself seems to be half-done as there are several places on both Scratch 2 and 3 pages where the blue colour remains, which makes me think they didn't test these changes at all, nevermind with vision-impaired kids.

Keep in mind that they've had 5 years to get accessibility right, and this is all we've gotten. The high-contrast blocks are nice, but that's about it. I really think the Scratch Team dropped the ball on this one.