[chockchocschoir]

> Especially the contrast/magic number discussion

Speaking about accessibility, who came up with that name "magic number"? It's already an overloaded term with multiple meanings and even has one negative one (for constants that has seemingly "magic" meaning or not a fully understood one).

Even something like "contrast ratio" would be immediate to come up with, and much better name as it actually says something on the tin.

> Hey Pete, what is the magic number for our color scheme in article body text?

Makes no sense... Replace "magic number" with "contrast ratio" and suddenly it does make sense.

[darekkay]

Contrast ratio is not a good name to describe this concept. A contrast ratio is a decimal number, while a "magic number" is an ordinal value. Also, a contrast ratio has a clear definition from WCAG perspective, and it would be even more confusing to use the same term for two very related topics (magic numbers are based on WCAG contrast ratios).

"Magic number" is not good either, for the reasons you've mentioned. But while doing my research for this topic, I couldn't find any better alternative, nor did I want to come up with my own term. I think this topic is niche enough, so we don't have to overthink it.

[dylan604]

You're forgetting two basic concepts: 1)Naming things is hard, 2)Nothing more permanent than a temporary solution. In this case, both are at play.