Band contrast, measured

Staged for review by the wave 3 accessibility pass, 26 Jul 2026. Nothing here is on wifiodds.com and nothing here should be until you have looked at it. The chips below are rendered at the real .band size and weight, on the three real surfaces.

The finding in one sentence. The band word beside each score is the site's deliberate non-colour signal, and for two of the four bands that word does not itself meet AA for small text on the surfaces it sits on. A reader who cannot trust the colour is handed a second signal that is also hard to read.

Dark theme — the boot default, so this is the one to look at first

Band	Today	Proposed
excellent `--good`	excellent 8.70 --paper excellent 7.98 --panel excellent 7.40 --card #63c98a	already clears 4.5:1 on all three. Unchanged.
mixed `--mixed`	mixed 8.17 --paper mixed 7.49 --panel mixed 6.95 --card #e0a53f	already clears 4.5:1 on all three. Unchanged.
long shot `--long`	long shot 6.04 --paper long shot 5.54 --panel long shot 5.14 --card #e07a5f	already clears 4.5:1 on all three. Unchanged.
not yet `--zero`	not yet 4.68 --paper not yet 4.29 --panel not yet 3.98 --card #8d8172	not yet 5.41 --paper not yet 4.96 --panel not yet 4.60 --card #978c7f
projected chip `--proj`	projected 5.75 --proj-bg #a99e8e	already clears 4.5:1. Unchanged.

Light theme

Band	Today	Proposed
excellent `--good`	excellent 5.04 --paper excellent 4.63 --panel excellent 5.35 --card #1e7a46	already clears 4.5:1 on all three. Unchanged.
mixed `--mixed`	mixed 4.59 --paper mixed 4.21 --panel mixed 4.86 --card #a06400	mixed 5.06 --paper mixed 4.64 --panel mixed 5.36 --card #975e00
long shot `--long`	long shot 5.34 --paper long shot 4.90 --panel long shot 5.66 --card #a84b2f	already clears 4.5:1 on all three. Unchanged.
not yet `--zero`	not yet 3.61 --paper not yet 3.31 --panel not yet 3.83 --card #8a8177	not yet 5.03 --paper not yet 4.61 --panel not yet 5.33 --card #716a62
projected chip `--proj`	projected 3.77 --proj-bg #7c7568	projected 4.62 --proj-bg #6e675c

What I am NOT proposing

The bar fill stays band-coloured and the chip word stays. Both are load-bearing and settled.
The chart palette (--chart-1/2/3) is fine: 4.12 to 9.23:1 against panel. No change.
--good and --long clear 4.5:1 everywhere in both themes. No change.
Every proposed colour keeps the original hue and saturation and moves lightness only, so the palette relationships hold. Target was 4.60 rather than a bare 4.50, for rounding headroom.

The third finding, which is separate

--line is the only boundary on every text input, select and textarea. WCAG 1.4.11 wants 3:1 for a control boundary. Decorative dividers are exempt, which is why the proposal is a new scoped token and not a change to --line itself: darkening --line would move every card edge and every ghost button on the site.

light: --line #e3daca measures 1.31 / 1.2 / 1.39 / 1.39 against paper / panel / card / field. A scoped --field-border at #9f8454 would measure 3.36 / 3.08 / 3.56 / 3.56.
dark: --line #3a332a measures 1.43 / 1.31 / 1.22 / 1.31 against paper / panel / card / field. A scoped --field-border at #7d6e5a would measure 3.61 / 3.31 / 3.07 / 3.31.

Ratios are WCAG 2.1 relative luminance, computed from the literal token values in assets/site.css, each colour against the background the CSS actually places it on. Generated 26 Jul 2026 by the wave 3 pass. Unlisted and noindex. Works with JavaScript off.