Evidence review
What to inspect before changing anything
Start with the delivered website and the real user journey. Record the current state so the team can distinguish an observed problem from an assumption and compare the same surface after deployment.
- 01Inventory unique colors and opacity variants
- 02Map each color to a semantic role
- 03Check contrast in normal, hover and disabled states
Implementation
A practical improvement plan
Make the smallest coherent change that solves the observed problem. Keep normal code review, accessibility, security and product checks in the loop instead of optimizing for the scan alone.
- 01Consolidate near-duplicate values
- 02Separate brand accents from status colors
- 03Define accessible foreground-background pairs
Verification
How to verify the result
Verification should test the intended outcome and the most likely regression. Use the production delivery path whenever headers, caching, rendering or third-party services affect the result.
- 01Run contrast checks on rendered states
- 02Test forced-colors and dark-mode assumptions
- 03Review screenshots for inconsistent meaning
Common pitfall
A shortcut to avoid
A smaller palette is not automatically better if the remaining colors must communicate conflicting meanings.
Further reading
Primary guidance and references
These sources provide standards, security guidance or the interpretation framework used to keep this guide bounded. Product-specific implementation still requires review in the actual codebase.