High contrast speed tests

TL;DR

According to WAVE (a well-known accessibility testtool) there are 8 speed test which use a sufficiently contrasting color palette (that is they have no contrast errors at all).

High-contrast speed tests that also feature in the top 10 are:

  1. M-Lab
  2. Internet Speed at a Glance
  3. Ookla Speedtest
 

Contents

  1. Introduction
  2. Method of measurement
  3. Speed tests to test
  4. The measurements
  5. Conclusions
 

Introduction

Website accessibility and assessing accessibility is often problematic. Fortunately, automatic tests are available, which test many (but not all) aspects.

For this test, we use WAVE to test the contrast of the speedtests homepage (low contrast is a common accessibility error).

 

Method of measurement

For this test we used a WAVE browser extension.

All cookie banners and so on are accepted before we start WAVE with Shift-Ctrl-U. When a speed test starts automatically, WAVE is started when the test is completed.

For this test we register the number of contrast errors per homepage.

 

Speed tests to test

Because this is a very simple test, the unique speed tests as collected at ZOMDir will be tested.

Note that speed tests which support light mode and dark mode are tested twice. Once with the light mode theme and once with the dark mode theme.

 

The measurements

  1. Astound speedtest 0 contrast errors
  2. Bandwidth Place 33 contrast errors
  3. Bredbandskollen 38 contrast errors
  4. Broadband Internet Speed test (Gone) 3 contrast errors
  5. Broadband Speed Checker 13 contrast errors
  6. Cloudflare 4 contrast errors
  7. Comparitech 15 contrast errors
  8. DSLReports 30 contrast errors
  9. Fast 4 contrast errors
  10. Fireprobe 31 contrast errors
  11. Google Fiber 3 contrast errors
  12. Internet Speed at a Glance (Light mode) 0 contrast errors
  13. Internet Speed at a Glance (Dark mode) 0 contrast errors
  14. LibreSpeed 2 contrast errors
  15. M-Lab 0 contrast errors
  16. Meter.net (Light mode) 2 contrast errors
  17. Meter.net (Dark mode) 8 contrast errors
  18. N Perf 33 contrast errors
  19. Ookla Speedtest 0 contrast errors
  20. Open Speed Test (Light mode) 0 contrast errors
  21. Open Speed Test (Dark mode) 3 contrast errors
  22. SamKnows 13 contrast errors
  23. SpeedCheck 6 contrast errors
  24. SpeedOf.me 24 contrast errors
  25. SpeedOf.me API Sample Page 0 contrast errors
  26. SpeedSmart (Light mode) 6 contrast errors
  27. SpeedSmart (Dark mode) 1 contrast error
  28. Speedtest4.PHP 0 contrast errors
  29. TestMy.net (Light mode) 15 contrast errors
  30. TestMy.net (Dark mode) 5 contrast errors
  31. Toast 12 contrast errors
  32. Which Broadband Speed Test 18 contrast errors
  33. Xfinity xFi Speed Test 0 contrast errors

The Xfinity xFi Speed Test didn't allow to start WAVE with Shift-Ctrl-U, hence this speed test is tested manually via the WAVE website.

Some examples

In the images below, you see some some examples of the contrast errors as detected by WAVE.

WAVE detected 3 contrast errors for Google Fiber WAVE detected 3 contrast errors for Meter.net (Dark mode) WAVE detected 24 contrast errors for SpeedOf.me

 

Conclusions

  1. The median of contrast errors is 4
  2. The maximum number of contrast errors is 38
  3. 8 speed tests have 0 contrast errors. These speed tests are:
    1. Astound speedtest
    2. Internet Speed at a Glance (Light mode and dark mode)
    3. M-Lab
    4. Ookla Speedtest
    5. Open Speed Test (Light mode)
    6. SpeedOf.me API Sample Page
    7. Speedtest4.PHP
    8. Xfinity xFi Speed Test

The best high contrast speed tests

Three of these speed tests are in the top 10 speed tests. It concerns the following speed tests:

  1. M-Lab
  2. Internet Speed at a Glance
  3. Ookla Speedtest