Admin menu is much harder to read when icons are nearly the same color as labels

[cbirdsong]

Under the new default color scheme, icons for items in the sidebar admin menu have nearly the same color as the surrounding text.

Version	Label Color	Icon Color	Perceptual difference (​CIE2000 ΔE)
6.9	#e8e8ea	#9ca2a7	18.2
7.0	#ffffff	#f3f1f1	2.9

This makes it much harder to quickly read the labels. It would be better if the colors were as perceptually different as they were in 6.9.

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Some useful tools for CIE2000 ΔE color values:

• ​Hex code comparisons
• ​Examples of various values

[cbirdsong]

Screenshot of two WordPress admin menus

[joedolson]

The new difference is certainly extremely subtle; but I'm not clear that it's really a regression. I'd like to get some design opinion on this; pinging @fabiankaegy or @joen.

In WCAG terms, the previous contrast ratio was 2.11:1; the new is 1.13:1.

We can achieve about the same effect at #b0b0b0 (2.17:1).

[joedolson]

Menu with icons darkened to b0b0b0

[joedolson]

Some feedback on this would be helpful! I don't know whether the color change was intentional or not, @fabiankaegy; I know that I hadn't even realized that there were two colors represented here previously, so I could readily believe it was an oversight.