Bartik's default link color has inadequate contrast to background (WCAG 2.0 violation)

After Dries himself noticed that the links are hard to see in error messages in one of Bartik's color schemes, Jeff Burnz and I took a look at this theme more carefully. We discovered that the default link color of Bartik has too little contrast, even to white, to conform with WCAG 2.0 at Level AA. Using Contrast-A, I analyzed the default link color's contrast against three backgrounds:

• white
• featured content
• tryptech

and the same in the footer.

Screenshots of those analyses are attached. Only in the footer does the link color have adequate contrast. In each of the other three cases, the link color needs to be substantially darker to pass at WCAG 2.0 Level AA. If we were to make this link color just a bit darker, it would pass, and it's likely that Dries wouldn't have found the links hard to read in that screenshot. I've also attached a couple of screenshots that show a fairly saturated blue of that hue that passes (hex 0C669E) and about the least saturated blue of that hue that would pass (366C8D). In the top row of "chips" at lower left, I show a range of colors between these.

To make the default color scheme of Bartik accessible at WCAG 2.0 Level AA, we have two choices:

• Change that color to a shade in the range demonstrated in these attachments.
• Keep the color as it is, but add an easily seen (which means "high-contrast") switch that would allow even an anonymous user to adjust the color scheme to a high-contrast scheme.