Accessibility and Readability Check
How Licklider supports accessible figure design through colorblind-safe palettes, perceptually uniform color scales, and readability warnings.
Licklider applies several safeguards to help ensure that figures are readable by all audiences, including readers with color vision deficiencies. These are built into the default figure settings rather than requiring manual configuration.
Color palette defaults
Licklider uses colorblind-safe palettes by default for group comparison figures. When a group column is present, the default color assignment follows a palette designed to remain distinguishable for the most common forms of color vision deficiency (deuteranopia and protanopia).
A colorblind palette is available as an explicit choice in the figure settings panel if you want to apply it to a figure that is using a different color scheme.
Heatmap color scale
Heatmaps use the Viridis color scale, which is perceptually uniform and accessible for readers with color vision deficiencies. The scale runs from dark purple (low values) to yellow (high values) and is designed so that equal steps in data value correspond to equal perceived steps in color.
The color scale for heatmaps is fixed and cannot be changed to a non-uniform scale.
Palette consistency checks
When a figure is generated, Licklider evaluates the color palette against accessibility criteria:
Perceptually uniform — the palette uses a color sequence where equal differences in value correspond to approximately equal perceived differences in color.
Colorblind safe — the palette remains distinguishable for common forms of color vision deficiency.
If a palette does not meet these criteria, the Inspector will surface a note indicating the accessibility risk.
Readability warnings
When individual data points are labeled and the number of observations exceeds a threshold where labels would overlap, the Inspector displays a note indicating that readability is reduced. This applies to scatter plots and strip plots with point labels enabled.
What is not currently available
A full accessibility audit — checking figure resolution, font size against journal requirements, alt text generation, or WCAG compliance — is not currently available. The checks described on this page cover color accessibility and label readability only.
What this page does not cover
- Choosing a color palette for a specific figure → adjust in the figure settings panel or Inspector
- Journal-specific format requirements → see Journal-specific Format Adaptation
- Figure export settings → see Schemas and Exports