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Useful Hauyne

#55d1b7
Notes

Useful Hauyne (#55D1B7) is a true teal with a cool character. It leans cool, sitting on the blue, green, and violet side of the wheel. Quiet and dependable, a fit for product UI and data visualization. Its HSL profile (167°, 57%, 58%) places it in the balanced band at a mid lightness. It works across type, buttons, and borders, saturated enough to feel deliberate but balanced enough to not fight the rest of the palette. For a confident two-color system, pair it with its complementary red. For something softer, pull in its analogous neighbors on either side of the wheel.

HEX
#55d1b7
RGB
rgb(85, 209, 183)
HSL
hsl(167, 57%, 58%)
HWB
hwb(167 33% 18%)
OKLCH
oklch(78.4% 0.117 176.9)
P3
color(display-p3 0.4707 0.8091 0.7213)
HSV
hsv(167, 59%, 82%)
LAB
lab(76.65% -40.65 2.63)
LCH
lch(76.65% 40.74 176.29)
CMYK
cmyk(59%, 0%, 12%, 18%)

Etymology

Useful
adjective

Latin ūsus, use — adjectival suffix -ful. As a color modifier, useful implies a clear-and-purpose-serving quality where the hue carries the visual register of helpful-and-supporting design-element. Sits at the crisp-and-functional end of the grid, parallel to practical and serviceable in usage.

Hauyne
noun

A blue-to-green variety of the lazurite mineral group — used in classical Egyptian and Mesoamerican blue pigments and modern fine jewelry. The color refers to a polished hauyne specimen: a saturated, slightly cool deep blue-green with the matte finish of sodium-aluminum silicate.

Closest matches

The nearest named color in three reference sources, ranked by perceptual distance (ΔE76 in CIELAB). ΔE < 1 is imperceptible to most viewers; ΔE > 10 is clearly different. When two sources point to the same hex they’re merged into one tile; click any to open that color’s page.

Variations

Click any swatch to explore

Harmonies

Accessibility

Color-vision simulation

How this color appears to viewers with the four major color-vision-deficiency types. Computed via the Machado (2009) physiologically-based model. If a tile matches the original, the color reads the same to that viewer.

#55d1b7
Original
#cac5b6
Protanopia
#b7b8b9
Deuteranopia
#00d4c9
Tritanopia
#b5b5b5
Achromatopsia
WCAG contrast

The color used as foreground text against pure white and pure black, with the contrast ratio and WCAG 2.1 grade. Aim for AA (4.5:1) for body text and AA Large (3:1) for 18 pt+ headlines; AAA (7:1) is the gold standard for long-form reading surfaces.

The quick brown foxSample body text at normal size. The wcag minimum for body contrast is 4.5:1 (AA) or 7:1 (AAA).
Failon White
1.88:1
The quick brown foxSample body text at normal size. The wcag minimum for body contrast is 4.5:1 (AA) or 7:1 (AAA).
AAAon Black
11.19:1

Wide gamut

Display P3 representation

The CSS Color 4 wide-gamut form of this color. Both swatches render the same color on every display — the P3 form only diverges from sRGB when a designer pushes channels outside sRGB's reach.

sRGB hex
sRGB hex
##55D1B7
Display P3
Display P3
color(display-p3 0.4707 0.8091 0.7213)
P3 has subtle headroomOKLCH chroma 0.117

Moderately saturated colors gain a small bump in P3 — the difference is usually visible side-by-side on wide-gamut hardware but won't change the character of the color.

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