RefreshingApps.com

Contrast-A is a great Adobe AIR application for designers and web developers. Not only is is a colour palette generator it also gives you heaps of information regarding the palettes compliance with WCAG (Web Content Accessibility Guidelines) 1 and WCAG 2".

You can check the compliance against colour deficiency like protonopia and complete colour blindness live as you move through the colour ranges.

There is the ability to produce a PDF from the applications of the colour palettes you created. This is a nice feature although the ability to save the palettes and state of the AIR application in future versions would be a welcomed addition.

For those people doing lots of accessibility work around colours not only on HTML web pages but also interactive desktop and web apps this Adobe AIR application will be a great addition to the tool box.

Video Review

Contrast-A from RefreshingApps on Vimeo.

Design eye

The design is clear and compact using a custom chrome for a unique look. You can’t resize the application and it might be a struggle to get it fitting on a 1024 size screen.

I love the 3d style colour wheel that you can tilt and move the colours through the spectrum. It has been really well built is the center piece of the AIR app.

Typography is clear and there is a nice slide out panel showing you how text might look given your palette choice.

You can’t remove a single colour swatch from the palette which could be slightly annoying if you accidentally clicked on the ‘add to palette’ button.

Technical eye

Built using Adobe Flash CS4 and the Adobe AIR 1.5 SDK.

In Summary

A clever and well thought out application that is guaranteed to be in those top lists of AIR apps for designers across the web. Well worth the install.