How Should You Choose Colors for Review Ratings? Color Schemes That Make Stars and Scores Easy to Read

Review ratings should make the number of stars or a score such as “4.3 / 5” easy to understand at a glance. Yellow stars are common, but if color alone communicates selected and unselected states—or the rating level—some users may not be able to distinguish the result. Combining star shape, fill, and a numeric value makes the rating easier to read, while text and icons should each be checked against their actual background colors. This article uses dark amber stars on a white background as one example.

Do not communicate the rating with star color alone; combine numbers and shape

WCAG (Web Content Accessibility Guidelines) 2.2 requires that color not be the only visual means of conveying information. W3C’s Non-text Contrast guidance specifically discusses a 1-to-5 star indicator and warns that using yellow and white alone to distinguish the star states can depend too heavily on color.

For a displayed review rating, use filled stars for the rated portion and outline-only stars for the remainder, then add text such as “4.3 / 5” and “128 reviews.” This lets users confirm the value even if they cannot distinguish the star colors accurately. If the stars are interactive inputs, do not treat them as decorative images; provide accessible option names, keyboard operation, and a visible focus state. W3C’s ARIA Authoring Practices includes a Rating Radio Group example that uses stars as selectable rating options.

Separate the roles of stars and scores with amber, gray, and dark text

Use white ■#FFFFFF for the page background and dark gray ■#27313A for the numeric rating. Their contrast ratio—the difference in relative luminance between foreground and background colors—is about 13.24:1. An important score such as “4.3 / 5” should remain readable as text even when the stars are present.

For filled stars, use dark amber ■#9A5B00, which has a contrast ratio of about 5.43:1 against white ■#FFFFFF. Leave unselected stars unfilled and use a gray outline ■#6B7280, which has about 4.83:1 against white ■#FFFFFF. Instead of making higher ratings progressively darker, communicate the value through the number of filled stars and the filled-versus-outline treatment.

For supporting information such as the review count, medium gray ■#5B6470 against white ■#FFFFFF gives a ratio of about 6.00:1. If the score is shown in a small label, pale amber ■#FFF4D6 with dark brown text ■#7A4B00 gives a ratio of about 6.76:1.

For interactive stars, check icons, focus, and state against the real background

If users can click or select the stars, the state should change by more than color alone. Use filled stars for selected values, outlines for unselected values, and a clear focus ring for keyboard focus. WCAG 2.2 generally requires at least 3:1 contrast against adjacent colors for non-text visual information needed to identify controls or states. Normal-size text requires at least 4.5:1, while large text requires at least 3:1.

Do not make “yellow” itself mean “good rating.” A brand color can be used instead as long as the same principles are preserved: combine fill, outline, and a numeric value. In HueRoll, you can adjust candidate colors with a three- or six-digit HEX code or the color picker, then check the selected color against white and black. HueRoll does not compare arbitrary custom color pairs or automatically determine AA or AAA conformance, so verify the actual combinations of star fill, outline, text, and background separately.