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Before a website redesign
Find which color pairs fail readability so the new palette is engineered, not eyeballed.
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branding.
strategy.
campaigns.
design.
experiences.
impact.
Most palettes don't fail because they're ugly. They fail because nobody can read them, remember them, or tell them apart.
How the debugger works
HEX → Lab → ΔE → contrast → APCA → CVD → roles → health
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Brand, colors, and the personality you're aiming for.
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HEX → HSL → luminance → contrast → harmony → hierarchy → score.
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What's broken, what's forgettable, what to lock in.
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A recommended system you can copy, compare and ship.
Brand color analysis
A brand color palette checker should do more than name your hex codes. DOTS Color scores eight signals — from color palette accessibility to brand personality fit — and rolls them into one Palette Health score.
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Every pair tested — text must survive its background.
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Analogous, complementary, or chaos? Structure checked.
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Measured against the personality you picked.
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Flags combinations your category overused.
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WCAG AA checks on every pair.
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One base, one ink, one accent — clear roles.
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Stretches across product, marketing and UI states.
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Scores whether your palette has a signature.
Example diagnosis
Your combination communicates trust, but it's heavily used across your category. Safe is expensive — it costs you memory.
distinctiveness 42/100 · trust-heavy SaaS cluster
No body-text pair passes WCAG AA. Fix the dark/light anchor before you debate hues.
best 2.1:1 / need 4.5:1
Common brand color problems
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Gray, navy, white. It offends nobody and registers with nobody. Safety is the most expensive position in branding.
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Five brights fighting for attention means none of them wins. Accents only work when the base stays quiet.
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The most common failure in brand color contrast: body text that passes in the mockup and dies on a real screen. 4.5:1, or rethink.
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When every color shouts at the same volume, nothing guides the eye. Someone has to be the lead actor.
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If your palette could belong to any of your competitors, it belongs to none of them. Audit against the category, not your moodboard.
FAQ
Yes. Paste your hex codes, pick a personality, get the full readout — score, findings, fixed palette and accessibility table. No account, no email wall.
No — it's a debugger, not a generator. Deterministic engine: same inputs, same score. It measures contrast, harmony and fit; it doesn't guess.
Readable contrast (4.5:1 for body text), a clear governing hue, one committed accent, a true dark and light, and a personality that matches intent.
Your analysis lives only in your browser. Nothing uploaded, tracked or shared — result pages are never indexed.
You get a fixed, copy-ready palette plus a before/after comparison. For the full system — tokens, typography, guidelines — our brand systems team builds it with you.
When to use it
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Find which color pairs fail readability so the new palette is engineered, not eyeballed.
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Check whether marketing colors survive contact with real UI text, buttons and states.
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Verify contrast claims with measured pair ratios instead of assumptions.
Debug it free in a minute — or get the complete professional color system: tokens, typography pairings, usage rules and guidelines your team can ship with.