5 ms·

I just don't understand how UI/UX designers, managers, whoever it was, managed to convince the world that grey on white makes any sense. Pure trend-following

subsubzero 6y ago
When asked why going with a light on light colored web page rendering readability to almost nil, the Designer spoke at length eloquently stating obscure mission statements, having the site born at the intersection of arts, activism and the global community at large. Finally they lastly mentioned "because its the right thing to do". /s
- codeduck 6y ago
  Is this a cry for help? :)
- vbezhenar 6y ago
  Designers just want their work to be unique and eye-catching. They don’t care about readability. They care about user remembering that page. If most pages have good contrast, designers will want to use light contrast to stand different. If light contrast would become the norm, they will reinvent hard contrast. It all goes in cycle.
  - dylan604 6y ago
    I remember that page as something I can't read and will tell everyone I know about how horrible it is. Is that really what "designers" want?
foo_barrio 6y ago
If you have something else other than text that you want to be the focus of the page like a photo, reducing the contrast on the text allows the photos "pop" more if it using the range of light and dark. My personal color schemes are all dark background and light grey text. So even in my world of IDEs, consoles, gvim, sublime and emacs where text is king, I prefer having less than 100% contrast between background/text. I am not using any kind of custom color scheme so at least 1 other person prefers this as well!
- dylan604 6y ago
  I come the world of video, and old enough to have spent time with graphics for SD. Specifically, NTSC compliant video. Since it was analog, there were severe consequences of color choices. Red was just a solid NO. On an 8-bit 0-255 scale, white was limited to 235, and black was limited to 16. The reasons for this are beyond the scope of this chat, but that limited range has still stuck with me. I never use #000 or #fff and opt for #111 to #eee for my limits. Seems like a decent enough compromise in web graphics.
Macha 6y ago
There's an argument that high contrast ratios are too high on the eyes, which is why "not quite black" is used on "not quite white" backgrounds. How people ran away on this to 50% brightness text on 70% brightness backgrounds is another question.
AndrewUnmuted 6y ago
Isn't the idea here that they don't want people snooping around and hanging out on the part of their website that describes all the problems going wrong with their service?
Shivetya 6y ago
How does any site in the US not run afoul of Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA)? Surely color choices like this are an issue that someone can raise; see WCAG 2.0 AA. which talks about how there must be a color contrast ratio of at least 4.5:1 between all text and background. Even W3C reminds people that colors are important.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]

subsubzero 6y ago

When asked why going with a light on light colored web page rendering readability to almost nil, the Designer spoke at length eloquently stating obscure mission statements, having the site born at the intersection of arts, activism and the global community at large. Finally they lastly mentioned "because its the right thing to do". /s

codeduck 6y ago
Is this a cry for help? :)
vbezhenar 6y ago
Designers just want their work to be unique and eye-catching. They don’t care about readability. They care about user remembering that page. If most pages have good contrast, designers will want to use light contrast to stand different. If light contrast would become the norm, they will reinvent hard contrast. It all goes in cycle.
- dylan604 6y ago
  I remember that page as something I can't read and will tell everyone I know about how horrible it is. Is that really what "designers" want?

foo_barrio 6y ago

If you have something else other than text that you want to be the focus of the page like a photo, reducing the contrast on the text allows the photos "pop" more if it using the range of light and dark. My personal color schemes are all dark background and light grey text. So even in my world of IDEs, consoles, gvim, sublime and emacs where text is king, I prefer having less than 100% contrast between background/text. I am not using any kind of custom color scheme so at least 1 other person prefers this as well!

dylan604 6y ago
I come the world of video, and old enough to have spent time with graphics for SD. Specifically, NTSC compliant video. Since it was analog, there were severe consequences of color choices. Red was just a solid NO. On an 8-bit 0-255 scale, white was limited to 235, and black was limited to 16. The reasons for this are beyond the scope of this chat, but that limited range has still stuck with me. I never use #000 or #fff and opt for #111 to #eee for my limits. Seems like a decent enough compromise in web graphics.

Macha 6y ago

There's an argument that high contrast ratios are too high on the eyes, which is why "not quite black" is used on "not quite white" backgrounds. How people ran away on this to 50% brightness text on 70% brightness backgrounds is another question.

AndrewUnmuted 6y ago

Isn't the idea here that they don't want people snooping around and hanging out on the part of their website that describes all the problems going wrong with their service?

Shivetya 6y ago

How does any site in the US not run afoul of Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA)? Surely color choices like this are an issue that someone can raise; see WCAG 2.0 AA. which talks about how there must be a color contrast ratio of at least 4.5:1 between all text and background. Even W3C reminds people that colors are important.

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]