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The Minimum Contrast Ratio for Ordinary Body Copy
A design system's default body text renders at 14px regular weight — well under WCAG's "large text" size threshold.
Per WCAG 2.1 AA, what's the minimum contrast ratio this text must clear against its background?
Solution
The correct answer is "4.5:1."
Normal text — body copy, labels, anything below the large-text size threshold — must clear a 4.5:1 contrast ratio against its background under WCAG 2.1 AA. This is the strictest of the standard's text contrast minimums, precisely because normal-size text is harder to read at low contrast than larger text is.
3:1 is the large-text and UI-component minimum, not normal text's. 7:1 is an AAA-level target, not the AA baseline. 2:1 isn't a WCAG threshold at all.
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