Android prepares to improve Material You with new ‘Color contrast’ menu

Ben Schoon | Apr 2 2024 - 10:35 am PT

Google’s Material You is a few years old at this point, but the company is apparently still working to improve it in upcoming Android releases with a new way of accessing “Color contrast” options.

Material You theming gives Android apps and the system as a whole a unique look, but it’s also always felt like things could go a bit further, and there have been some really neat apps to further customize the system.

Now, as Android 15 is moving towards its release, new features are surfacing.

As reported by Android Headlines, Google is working on a new “Color contrast” customization option in the latest Android beta releases.

This option would allow users to manually make elements of Material You appear darker, rather than the default appearance which tends to use similar shades of colors through different UI elements. The “default” setting will be the lightest, while “medium” and “high” will add further contrast to the UI elements. There’s also a toggle to improve contrast of text specifically by adding a black or white stroke to the text.

Google, in the menu, says that not all apps will respond to these settings.

“Color contrast” works on both light and dark modes, resulting in darker colors on light mode, and lighter colors on dark mode.

Google was working on a similar version of this sort of functionality back in earlier builds of Android 14, which now resides in the system’s developer options. This new menu seems to be a user-facing way to access that option which, again, is already technically active.

This new menu was uncovered manually within Android 14 QPR3 Beta 2.1 which released yesterday, but it’s most likely set to formally debut in Android 15. Whenever it goes live, it will be found under “Color and motion” in Android’s accessibility settings rather than the “Wallpaper & style” menu where the rest of Material You’s controls tend to be found.