Light text on dark background vs. readability | 456 Berea Street - The Diigo Meta page

• 22 Oct 09
  

  Kevin Farley

  usability

• 05 Aug 09
  

  Matt Cynamon
  • What’s up with the current design trend of light text on dark backgrounds? Many web designers seem to favour inverted colour schemes, but what happened to readability and usability? I know I am not the only person to find it very uncomfortable to read text on sites with inverted, high contrast designs.
  • that they have been appearing more frequently in the last year or so.
  • 3 more annotations...
  • • It isn’t just about using light-on-dark text in the main content area either. I also find that high contrasts between different areas of the page cause problems. An example is when the main content area uses dark-on-light and there is an inverted sidebar right next to it. It hurts my eyes, and if possible I make my browser window narrow enough to hide the inverted part of the page when I visit sites that have that kind of design.
    • Note that I am not criticising the aesthetics of inverted designs, just their readability. Several light-on-dark sites look fantastic for a few seconds or even a minute
    • When reversing colour out, eg white text on black, make sure you increase the leading, tracking and decrease your font-weight. This applies to all widths of Measure. White text on a black background is a higher contrast to the opposite, so the letterforms need to be wider apart, lighter in weight and have more space between the lines.
• 16 Mar 09
  

  Dan Smith

  css accessibility color

• 30 Jul 08
  

  Noe Ruiz
  • a lovely bookmarklet that makes every site readable. Drag the link to your toolbar and use it next time you go to a site that you can’t read. If you’re a white-on-black fan, change the values.
  • Oddly enough, last year, I was having problems with eye strain and visitied the optician who suggested switching my work environment (primarily a text editor) to a light on dark colour scheme. Basically his advice was that since most of the screen is usually bright (in a dark on light scheme), you are staring into a light for some 8 odd hours a day. Since I switched, no more eye-strain. YMMV of course!
  • 1 more annotations...

  • • I'll never understand these sorts of complaints. I have impaired vision and I've always found light text on a dark background far easier to read.

      
      
      

      Take a look at how monitors work... Light backgrounds mean more light. More light means more eyestrain.

      
      
      

      This site hurts my eyes like the blazes. You could benefit by toning it down a bit.

      
      
      

      I'd be interested in reading more of your blog, but my eyes just can't take the strain.

• 03 Mar 08
  

  matthew solle
• 07 Mar 07
  

  evangeline s
• 02 Sep 06
  

  Kelsey Ruger

  system:unfiled

• 22 Aug 06
  

  Aaron Stockton

  blog css design typography webdev tips usability webdesign

Would you like to comment?

Join Diigo for a free account, or sign in if you are already a member.