Fix text that's hard to read
Pale grey on cream looks elegant on a designer's screen and disappears on a phone in daylight. White text over a photograph reads perfectly against the dark part of the picture and vanishes against the sky. Neither shows up as a complaint — the visitor just leaves, and you never find out why.
The good news is that this is the one part of design that isn't a matter of taste. Text is measured against whatever sits behind it, and the result is a number. Above the line it's readable; below it, it isn't — no opinion required. That's why Bernard can simply fix it rather than offering you options.
What Bernard does
Ask, and Bernard goes through your site region by region — the body of your pages, your header, your footer, any banner — and reads the real measurement for every different style of text sitting on every background. The ones that fall short come back worst-first, with a sample of your actual words so you can see which bit of writing is affected.
Then it fixes them, on a draft you approve: the text moves a few shades darker or lighter, only as far as it needs to go, so the design still looks like yours. Where the words sit on a picture, it can give them a calmer ground to sit on instead.
What Bernard won't do
It won't change your colours. This is the important part. The lazy way to win a readability score is to mute a business's brand into safe greys, and that erases the thing that makes a site recognisably yours. If a piece of text is your brand colour and genuinely can't be moved, Bernard says so and asks you — it doesn't quietly tone you down.
If you've told Bernard about your colours (the "Tell Bernard about you" recipe), it already knows which ones are yours to keep, and works around them.
Seeing what changed
Everything happens on a private draft. You get told in plain English what was hard to read and what was done about it — "your footer links were a pale grey on cream, I've taken them a few shades darker" — and nothing goes live until you say so.
If everything on your site already reads well, Bernard tells you that in one sentence and stops. That's a good answer, not a wasted trip.
The prompt
“Go through my site and find any text that's hard to read — too pale against its background, or sitting on a photo. Fix it by making the text darker or lighter, but don't change my brand colours. Show me before it goes live.”
Press Copy, then paste it into your AI and fill in the [bracketed] parts. First time? Connect your AI to bernard first — a one-time setup in bernard → your site → Use your own AI.
Questions people ask
- How do I know if the text on my website is hard to read?
- There's an actual measurement for it, so you don't have to guess. Text is compared against whatever sits behind it and given a score; anything below the accepted floor is officially hard to read, whatever it looks like on your own screen. That matters because your screen is probably brighter and newer than your customers'. Ask your AI to check and it will tell you which words fall short and where.
- Will fixing the contrast change my brand colours?
- No. The fix moves the text a few shades darker or lighter, or changes what sits behind it — your brand colours stay exactly as they are. If a piece of text IS your brand colour and can't be moved without changing it, your AI will tell you and ask what you'd like to do rather than quietly muting it. Every change lands on a private draft you approve before anything goes live.
- Why does readable text matter for my website?
- Because the people who struggle are rarely the ones who tell you. Someone reading on a phone in daylight, or anyone whose eyesight isn't perfect, simply gives up and leaves — it never arrives as a complaint. It also counts towards accessibility standards, which matters if you sell to organisations that ask about them.
- Does pale grey text look more modern?
- It's a common look, and it's the single most common readability problem on small-business sites. You can keep a light, airy feel without going so pale that the words disappear — usually a few shades is all it takes, and most owners can't see the difference in the design but can immediately see the difference in the words.