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Adjust the console for how you work

The console has nine accessibility preferences, under Settings then Accessibility. None of them appeared in this documentation before, which made them impossible to find unless you happened to open that panel.

The nine

Preference Options Default
Motion System, Reduced, Full System
Contrast System, More System
Text size 100%, 112.5%, 125%, 150% 100%
Link underlines On hover, Always On hover
Single-key shortcuts On, Off On
Toast duration 5s, 10s, 20s, until dismissed 5s
Status palette Default, Colour-vision-friendly Default
Target size Default, Large Default
Focus ring Automatic, Always Automatic

What each one does

Motion on System follows your operating system’s reduced-motion setting, which is what you want almost always. Reduced forces the calm presentation regardless. Full is the one setting in the console that overrides an operating-system preference: it animates the canvases and transitions even where the system asks for reduced motion. It exists because that is sometimes a deliberate choice, and it is deliberately the only such override.

Contrast on System follows your operating system’s contrast preference; More forces the increased-contrast presentation.

Text size scales the root font size, so the layout reflows rather than the text simply overflowing. Your browser’s own zoom still works and the two compose.

Link underlines on Always underlines links in prose rather than only on hover. Useful if colour alone is not a reliable signal for you.

Single-key shortcuts turns off / and the g chords, which matters if you use speech input or an on-screen keyboard where a stray character can fire a navigation. This is WCAG 2.1.4. Cmd-K and Ctrl-K keep working, because a modifier chord cannot be triggered by dictation. See keyboard and command palette.

Toast duration sets how long a transient message stays. Setting it to until dismissed is the one to reach for if a toast has ever disappeared before you finished reading it: nothing then auto-dismisses.

Status palette switches to a colour-vision-friendly palette that separates status by blue and orange rather than green and red. Worth being straight about what this is and is not: it is comfort, not conformance. Status in the console is already carried by shape and by a text label as well as by colour, so the default palette does not rely on colour alone. This option makes the distinction easier to see at a glance, and nothing depends on it.

Target size makes every control 44 pixels, which is the WCAG 2.5.5 AAA tier. Compact viewports already get this treatment, so the setting matters on a large screen where controls would otherwise be sized for a mouse.

Focus ring on Always shows the focus indicator on every focus, not only when the browser judges the focus to be keyboard-driven. Useful when that heuristic guesses wrong for the way you move around the console.

They are per-browser, and that is a real limitation

These are stored in the browser you set them in, not against your account. So they do not follow you to another machine, another browser or a private window, and clearing site data resets them to the defaults above.

If you set the console up for someone, set these in the browser they will actually use. There is no way to push them to an account or a team, and no administrator can set them on a colleague’s behalf.

Where this fits

Last updated .