3 ms·

Here's a tip: Open a book. Any book. Note the color of the ink. Now use that color for your fonts and try to ignore the wankers trying to confuse art with in

Here's a tip: Open a book. Any book. Note the color of the ink. Now use that color for your fonts and try to ignore the wankers trying to confuse art with information conveyance.

joe_the_user 16y ago
This seems like an important point. Design and aesthetics are such big, exciting fields that it seems like one enter them and never leave, meaning you start thinking about visual qualities of a page and forget that it exists to convey information. Consider: A single, amazing image can takes months to create. That's two dimensions for painting. A single, amazing moving picture can take man-years to create. That three dimensions for film. How long should it take to create a single, amazing, roughly four dimensional moving image? (The dimension for an application being height, width, time and user interaction) It should take a long time indeed - meaning that anyone designing an interactive application must ignore/discard 99% of the possible ways to do things superbly and settle for things that work in one dimension or another. Black and white is terribly ugly in standard image aesthetics. That doesn't mean it won't work very, very well when a number of the other dimensions are considered. Obviously, a long topic...
- extension 16y ago
  Ideally, time would not matter to your application in the way it matters to movies, unless it's a realtime simulation.
tptacek 16y ago
Web applications aren't books. By your logic, links also shouldn't be highlighted either.
- joe_the_user 16y ago
  I think the point is you should focus on design principles intended to for conveying information - if that's your purpose. Web applications can have zillions of purposes and zillions of aesthetic considerations to go with them - fluffy pink hearts might work very well for Victoria's Secret, etc.
  - tptacek 16y ago
    This article takes an observation from fine art and uses it to clarify a key technique in information design (creating hierarchies of information). Look at the metadata line on this comment for an example of that technique being used in one of the least ostentatious designs you interact with regularly. This comment, on the other hand, appears to begin from the premise that because books use black and white to good effect, fine art has nothing to teach information design. It's distilled, oblivious snark.
    - joe_the_user 16y ago
      Hmm, The comment might be a bit snarky but statement "you should never use black" is pretty blanket as well, even if the article does have lots of interesting information.
      - tptacek 16y ago
        The article has an extremely good reason for avoiding black: it eliminates an opportunity to use an additional color axis (hue, in addition to value) to create visual hierarchies. Incidentally, long before this article was ever written, Edward Tufte was recommending that people avoid black and white. I assume that's part of the reason Hacker News has that cream-colored background.
        jacobolus 16y ago
        Specifically, from 2002: “The usual metaphor for screens (projection and computer) these days seems to be black type on a white background, that is, a paper metaphor. This sometimes results in video glare, with lots of rays coming from the background. Sometimes the old fashioned computer screen seems less tiring, showing lit-up text on a dead backround. “So you should try to reduce video glare, perhaps by reducing the figure/ground contrast. For example, our screens on this website usually have a light tint on the ground to reduce the electric blue-white video glare. Of course on the computer screen, one can just turn down the brightness control when working at night or in a darkened room. Television control rooms and airplane cockpits generally have darkened backgrounds upon which to display lighted data. “On paper, white type on a black background can result in filled-in serifs because of the printing process. It is also harder to read white type on a black ground (there surely must be some evidence about this). But we should never be working at the edge of legibility in any situation, so legibility tests might not be relevant. “For projection presentations, obviously the figure/ground contrast must be sufficient to overcome the ambient light. Check your presentation room out in advance, test your projectors, find out how to control the room lighting and the window curtains if necessary. You should simply look at the various design solutions under real conditions to see what is going on, and not depend on verbal discussions such as this to decide!” -- Edward Tufte, March 19, 2002 http://www.edwardtufte.com/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg?msg_id=000082 http://www.edwardtufte.com/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg?msg_id=0...
kadavy 16y ago
Color of ink on a book != color you perceive, when compared to a monitor. The most pleasing books to read are on a cream stock (The Elements of Typographic Style comes to mind), and thus have a bit less contrast than #fff vs. #000.
- eru 16y ago
  Black ink on cream paper may have more contrast than black on white on a screen.

Here's a tip: Open a book. Any book. Note the color of the ink. Now use that color for your fonts and try to ignore the wankers trying to confuse art with information conveyance.

joe_the_user 16y ago

This seems like an important point. Design and aesthetics are such big, exciting fields that it seems like one enter them and never leave, meaning you start thinking about visual qualities of a page and forget that it exists to convey information. Consider: A single, amazing image can takes months to create. That's two dimensions for painting. A single, amazing moving picture can take man-years to create. That three dimensions for film. How long should it take to create a single, amazing, roughly four dimensional moving image? (The dimension for an application being height, width, time and user interaction) It should take a long time indeed - meaning that anyone designing an interactive application must ignore/discard 99% of the possible ways to do things superbly and settle for things that work in one dimension or another. Black and white is terribly ugly in standard image aesthetics. That doesn't mean it won't work very, very well when a number of the other dimensions are considered. Obviously, a long topic...

extension 16y ago
Ideally, time would not matter to your application in the way it matters to movies, unless it's a realtime simulation.

tptacek 16y ago

Web applications aren't books. By your logic, links also shouldn't be highlighted either.

joe_the_user 16y ago
I think the point is you should focus on design principles intended to for conveying information - if that's your purpose. Web applications can have zillions of purposes and zillions of aesthetic considerations to go with them - fluffy pink hearts might work very well for Victoria's Secret, etc.
- tptacek 16y ago
  This article takes an observation from fine art and uses it to clarify a key technique in information design (creating hierarchies of information). Look at the metadata line on this comment for an example of that technique being used in one of the least ostentatious designs you interact with regularly. This comment, on the other hand, appears to begin from the premise that because books use black and white to good effect, fine art has nothing to teach information design. It's distilled, oblivious snark.
  - joe_the_user 16y ago
    Hmm, The comment might be a bit snarky but statement "you should never use black" is pretty blanket as well, even if the article does have lots of interesting information.
    - tptacek 16y ago
      The article has an extremely good reason for avoiding black: it eliminates an opportunity to use an additional color axis (hue, in addition to value) to create visual hierarchies. Incidentally, long before this article was ever written, Edward Tufte was recommending that people avoid black and white. I assume that's part of the reason Hacker News has that cream-colored background.
      - jacobolus 16y ago
        Specifically, from 2002: “The usual metaphor for screens (projection and computer) these days seems to be black type on a white background, that is, a paper metaphor. This sometimes results in video glare, with lots of rays coming from the background. Sometimes the old fashioned computer screen seems less tiring, showing lit-up text on a dead backround. “So you should try to reduce video glare, perhaps by reducing the figure/ground contrast. For example, our screens on this website usually have a light tint on the ground to reduce the electric blue-white video glare. Of course on the computer screen, one can just turn down the brightness control when working at night or in a darkened room. Television control rooms and airplane cockpits generally have darkened backgrounds upon which to display lighted data. “On paper, white type on a black background can result in filled-in serifs because of the printing process. It is also harder to read white type on a black ground (there surely must be some evidence about this). But we should never be working at the edge of legibility in any situation, so legibility tests might not be relevant. “For projection presentations, obviously the figure/ground contrast must be sufficient to overcome the ambient light. Check your presentation room out in advance, test your projectors, find out how to control the room lighting and the window curtains if necessary. You should simply look at the various design solutions under real conditions to see what is going on, and not depend on verbal discussions such as this to decide!” -- Edward Tufte, March 19, 2002 http://www.edwardtufte.com/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg?msg_id=000082 http://www.edwardtufte.com/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg?msg_id=0...

kadavy 16y ago

Color of ink on a book != color you perceive, when compared to a monitor. The most pleasing books to read are on a cream stock (The Elements of Typographic Style comes to mind), and thus have a bit less contrast than #fff vs. #000.

eru 16y ago
Black ink on cream paper may have more contrast than black on white on a screen.