4 ms·

I'm looking at those posts, and only two of the linked studies actually analyze font in conjunction with color. And the link is dead, but one of the comments to

by sprout 16y ago

I'm looking at those posts, and only two of the linked studies actually analyze font in conjunction with color. And the link is dead, but one of the comments to Atwood's blog suggests that he didn't read the second study as closely has he should have, and it actually says that there are specific font/color scheme combinations that are readable, not that some color schemes are simply unreadable. Furthermore, Both of those posts are from before the iPhone, so I'd bet they were done on a full-sized computer screen. If I turn my Motorola Droid up to full brightness at night and read Reddit, I might as well be staring at a flashlight. Even low brightness is too much, especially at that range. With the reddit-is-fun app I vastly prefer white-on-black. Right now I'm typing this on a 25" monitor, with my face 4 feet from the screen, and it's black-on-white in a browser box. But that's desktop. What we need is a broad-based study with various smartphones and smartphone fonts at multiple brightness levels. (both backlight and ambient) I doubt that black-on-white is a good idea on a 4" screen with low ambient light. (At least not when you're reliant on a backlight.) At best, I would bet different fonts work well with different color schemes, and black-on-white should be avoided on portable devices to save battery power.

Confusion 16y ago
You are probably right that desktop vs. smartphone matters. And perhaps the amount of people and the amount they benefit doesn't weigh against the additional battery usage. The best solution would be if you could simply switch between color schemes at will (and set a personal default). This page [1] suggests that most studies are even from before 'the web' (but from when is the page?). It has the quote by Jakob Nielsen that formed my opinion back when, from his well known 'Designing web usability': Use colors with high contrast between the text and the background. Optimal legibility requires black text on white background (so-called positive text). White text on a black background (negative text) is almost as good. Although the contrast ratio is the same as for positive text, the inverted color scheme throws people off a little and slows their reading slightly. Legibility suffers much more for color schemes that make the text any lighter than pure black, especially if the background is made any darker than pure white (Nielsen 2000, p 125) I don't own the book and can't check on his sources, but Nielsen generally bases such advise on research. Anyway, all I'm saying is that they may have simply thought to be improving their app, not necessarily to increase the shinyness. [1] http://web.mst.edu/~rhall/web_design/color_readability.html http://web.mst.edu/~rhall/web_design/color_readability.html

by sprout 16y ago

Confusion 16y ago

You are probably right that desktop vs. smartphone matters. And perhaps the amount of people and the amount they benefit doesn't weigh against the additional battery usage. The best solution would be if you could simply switch between color schemes at will (and set a personal default). This page [1] suggests that most studies are even from before 'the web' (but from when is the page?). It has the quote by Jakob Nielsen that formed my opinion back when, from his well known 'Designing web usability': Use colors with high contrast between the text and the background. Optimal legibility requires black text on white background (so-called positive text). White text on a black background (negative text) is almost as good. Although the contrast ratio is the same as for positive text, the inverted color scheme throws people off a little and slows their reading slightly. Legibility suffers much more for color schemes that make the text any lighter than pure black, especially if the background is made any darker than pure white (Nielsen 2000, p 125) I don't own the book and can't check on his sources, but Nielsen generally bases such advise on research. Anyway, all I'm saying is that they may have simply thought to be improving their app, not necessarily to increase the shinyness. [1] http://web.mst.edu/~rhall/web_design/color_readability.html http://web.mst.edu/~rhall/web_design/color_readability.html