3 ms·

Wow, that is certainly one way of making a website color scheme (and alienating potential readers). Either searing the reader's eyes with that gaudy yellow OR m

by Lev1a 5y ago

Wow, that is certainly one way of making a website color scheme (and alienating potential readers). Either searing the reader's eyes with that gaudy yellow OR making the reader wave around their mouse as a "flashlight" instead of changing or even just switching the BG and FG colors. I suspect accessability didn't factor that much into the thought process behind designing that website.

the_other 5y ago
I have poor eyesight and am fairly sensitive to contrast problems. I found this site very pleasant to read and have bookmarked it for later design “inspiration”. Yellow on black tends to make the writing “shrink” for me, lowering the readability.
- Lev1a 5y ago
  For me the light/bright colors are really straining my eyes since they're very sensitive to glare/bright lights as a consequence of cataracts. Also the switching of the FG and BG colors was just an example I could think of in the moment to get something like "dark mode" with minimal effort. In practice I'd probably go with a somewhat "off-white"(?) FG on a medium-dark grey BG. IMO a less bright white text color in this scenario does well in eliminating the "shrinking" you speak of while the contrast with the muted grey BG isn't too harsh.
  - the_other 5y ago
    Empathies with your difficulties. We seem to have slightly different access needs. This highlights the richness of working on accessibility problems. No one solution suits everyone, and there isn’t even a “accessible” and “not-accessible” pair that covers all bases either.
- mbrock 5y ago
  Yep, I have sent this website to people before with excited messages like “this color scheme seems weird but I find it very soothing and helpful for reading and concentrating.”
thom 5y ago
I think people have reacted to this comment as pure snark, but I did take a moment to look at your comment history and you're actually describing a physical reaction you're having, not just a matter of taste. I'd love to hear how general this problem is for you on the web, and how one might go around testing for these sorts of accessibility issues during development. I know of the various colour blindness 'simulation' tools available but other than the option of a dark mode (a proper one, not a gimmicky one like here) I wouldn't know how to address this issue.
- Lev1a 5y ago
  > I'd love to hear how general this problem is for you on the web For me in general "thin dark fonts on bright BG" and "bright fonts on very dark BG" are both straining to the eyes although the former is worse almost every time. I find myself zooming in further and more often on websites with those sorts of color schemes although if I zoom too far in I then have to swivel my head back and forth for every line of text due to my glasses having "progressive lenses"[0] ie. a pretty narrow cone of vision with the right "power" to read at eye-screen distance. > testing for these sorts of accessibility issues during development - IMO a pretty good rule of thumb would be to not cover vast amounts of the website in bright colors - offer a dark mode, maybe even make it the default with an optional light-mode - respect the user's browser/system-colorscheme with the CSS property "color-scheme" [1] (although in Firefox the support for that feature is scheduled for the next version this coming January) [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Progressive_lens https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Progressive_lens [1]: https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/CSS/color-scheme https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/CSS/color-schem...
fayten 5y ago
I really enjoy the color scheme of their site. As some work arounds though, the site works well with reader mode in Safari and Firefox. Also check out Dark Reader by Alexander Shutau for Firefox. That may help alleviate some eye pain. https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/darkreader/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/darkreader/

by Lev1a 5y ago

the_other 5y ago

I have poor eyesight and am fairly sensitive to contrast problems. I found this site very pleasant to read and have bookmarked it for later design “inspiration”. Yellow on black tends to make the writing “shrink” for me, lowering the readability.

Lev1a 5y ago
For me the light/bright colors are really straining my eyes since they're very sensitive to glare/bright lights as a consequence of cataracts. Also the switching of the FG and BG colors was just an example I could think of in the moment to get something like "dark mode" with minimal effort. In practice I'd probably go with a somewhat "off-white"(?) FG on a medium-dark grey BG. IMO a less bright white text color in this scenario does well in eliminating the "shrinking" you speak of while the contrast with the muted grey BG isn't too harsh.
- the_other 5y ago
  Empathies with your difficulties. We seem to have slightly different access needs. This highlights the richness of working on accessibility problems. No one solution suits everyone, and there isn’t even a “accessible” and “not-accessible” pair that covers all bases either.
mbrock 5y ago
Yep, I have sent this website to people before with excited messages like “this color scheme seems weird but I find it very soothing and helpful for reading and concentrating.”

thom 5y ago

I think people have reacted to this comment as pure snark, but I did take a moment to look at your comment history and you're actually describing a physical reaction you're having, not just a matter of taste. I'd love to hear how general this problem is for you on the web, and how one might go around testing for these sorts of accessibility issues during development. I know of the various colour blindness 'simulation' tools available but other than the option of a dark mode (a proper one, not a gimmicky one like here) I wouldn't know how to address this issue.

Lev1a 5y ago
> I'd love to hear how general this problem is for you on the web For me in general "thin dark fonts on bright BG" and "bright fonts on very dark BG" are both straining to the eyes although the former is worse almost every time. I find myself zooming in further and more often on websites with those sorts of color schemes although if I zoom too far in I then have to swivel my head back and forth for every line of text due to my glasses having "progressive lenses"[0] ie. a pretty narrow cone of vision with the right "power" to read at eye-screen distance. > testing for these sorts of accessibility issues during development - IMO a pretty good rule of thumb would be to not cover vast amounts of the website in bright colors - offer a dark mode, maybe even make it the default with an optional light-mode - respect the user's browser/system-colorscheme with the CSS property "color-scheme" [1] (although in Firefox the support for that feature is scheduled for the next version this coming January) [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Progressive_lens https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Progressive_lens [1]: https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/CSS/color-scheme https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/CSS/color-schem...

fayten 5y ago

I really enjoy the color scheme of their site. As some work arounds though, the site works well with reader mode in Safari and Firefox. Also check out Dark Reader by Alexander Shutau for Firefox. That may help alleviate some eye pain. https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/darkreader/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/darkreader/