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Please Stop Using Grey Text
- pabs3 4y agoDark Reader is a good option to override website colours: https://darkreader.org/ https://darkreader.org/
- dredmorbius 4y agoIt's worth noting that Dark Reader can force light high-contrast modes. I use it for this on my e-ink device. The results aren't always optimal (site graphics and navigation are often mangled), but the main body text is at least readable.
- mdp2021 4y agoAlso try "Lightning Browser" ( acr.browser.lightning ) from Anthony Restaino ( acrdevelopment.org ). > Rendering mode[s]: Inverted ; Grayscale ; Inverted grayscale ; Increase contrast https://github.com/anthonycr/Lightning-Browser https://github.com/anthonycr/Lightning-Browser
- dredmorbius 4y agoHrm... Oh, and this is an Android app (available via F-Droid to boot). I've already got ... three web browsers installed (not including w3m and others under Termux). The thought that there's a need for yet more browsers just to read the fucking text seems ... sad? Would you happen to know of screenshots / videos demoing features? That said, thanks. It is another option.
- mdp2021 4y ago> three web browsers installed Well, if you are using browsers on EPD, one of the first points in the wishlist (or, "requirements unless desperate") is to have a high-contrast option.
- dredmorbius 4y agoEinkbro https://github.com/plateaukao/browser https://github.com/plateaukao/browser High-contrast, paginated nav, minimum animation, save-to-ePub (see my recent comments here), font scaling, adblocking, and more.
- kwelstr 4y agoI resorted to an extension that changes all font colors to custom or just night mode. Browsing on black background and white text is best for my eyes.
- imron 4y agoAll webpage designers should read this: https://www.contrastrebellion.com/ https://www.contrastrebellion.com/
- theknocker 4y ago
- Myndex 4y agoI can say it has been immensely helpful reading through the comments here and I thank you all for your input. If you want to read further regarding the readability research project, there's a catalog of resources and further articles at: https://git.myndex.com https://git.myndex.com
- baisq 4y agoSays the guy with a white on purple website
- stavros 4y agoFirst paragraph: > And before we continue, let’s make it absolutely clear that we have no control of the color of the text in this very article, as it is hosted through Medium.com, which features poor visual accessibility of their site design.
- soneil 4y agoI still think it's worth pointing out. I do believe this is the first purple article I've seen on medium, so I don't believe purple is a limitation of the platform.
- baisq 4y agoHow’s that an excuse?
- selfishclouds 4y agoShould’ve said third paragraph: When viewed through the TangledWeb publication,we have set it to a dark mode, which is probably the best contrast possible per how Medium is configured.
- loloquwowndueo 4y agoWell he says medium uses grey text, yet this article has a purple background which is clearly not a medium default - so obviously he had some control and made this unfortunate choice.
- SemanticStrengh 4y agothey should not have set dark mode in the first place
- grey_earthling 4y agoThey present the fact that it's hosted through Medium.com as if that was an immutable law of nature. Other websites exist. By hosting the article at Medium.com, despite their objections to how Medium.com constrains the article's appearance, the author is demonstrating that they don't consider their own argument particularly persuasive.
- SemanticStrengh 4y agoplease stop forcing dark themes, reading white text on dark background is less readable so at least default to the user global preference cf https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/CSS/@media/prefers-color-scheme https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/CSS/@media/pref... I'd be nice to see stats on the level of user engagement on black vs white texts, I assume the user probability to stop reading earlier when white is much higher, for me it is often a no go. Any scientific study out there?
- IAmEveryone 4y agoIndeed; darkness means dilated pupils means shallow depth-of-field means your eyes need to work a lot more to keep text in focus.
- SemanticStrengh 4y agogood to see that everyone agree on that
- xigoi 4y agoThis is why you should keep your room lit while looking at a screen.
- Sohcahtoa82 4y agoI'm convinced that most people that complain about light themes being blinding either don't have enough ambient light in the room or have their brightness cranked too high (likely as a counter to the dark theme they use).
- IAmEveryone 4y agoI was in student accommodation recently and noticed that it didn't have any reading lights at either desks or beds, neither as part of the standard finishing nor added by the students, at least in for the two or three rooms I saw.
- 4y ago
- eimrine 4y agoOnly terminal-based websites can rid of that but the price is getting rid of non-monotype fonts as well. Medium, tangleweb, HN - all of that are not using black text. Neither rest of the web does unless some "this is a website" [1] or maybe Stallman's website [2]. [1] https://motherfuckingwebsite.com/ https://motherfuckingwebsite.com/ [2] https://www.stallman.org/archives/2022-mar-jun.html https://www.stallman.org/archives/2022-mar-jun.html
- christophilus 4y agoGah. Please stop using Medium. We should have a HN guideline to add (Medium) to the title when the URL itself obfuscates that fact. Anyway, I agree with the article. I find myself resorting to reader mode more and more these days partly due to crummy web fonts, partly due to janky JS and bloat, and partly due to unreadable color combinations.
- CraigJPerry 4y ago>> partly due to janky JS and bloat Are there any effective browser extensions to intelligently prevent things like a "Subscribe to our newsletter" popover? I'm trying to think how i could tell uBlock origin to intercept any element with a high z-index which has it's ".display" attribute changed only in response to a timer or a scroll event. In firefox i have the "I don't care about cookies" plugin and i genuinely forget that noise exists on the web until i use another browser and it all comes flooding back. I'm hoping there's something similar for this endemic cruft the web has been filled with. Reader mode can be useful. NoScript can be useful but can also be painful.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- noisem4ker 4y agoFrom the same author as "I don't care about cookies": https://www.no-thanks-extension.com/ https://www.no-thanks-extension.com/ I haven't personally tried it yet, but I'm tempted.
- victorvscn 4y agoEdit: it's a subscription. No, thanks. I much prefer the crowdsourcing model, which allows the entire world to have it (and contribute to it), and not only those who can pay such prices (that are quite expensive in most of the world, including where I live).
- jamespo 4y ago
- mrunkel 4y ago> For over 1000 years black text on white paper has been the best practice for printed texts worldwide. This alone almost made me stop reading the article. What worked for printed text has no bearing for what works on an illuminated screen. But honestly, it's not grey text that's the problem. I agree with the author that maintaining high contrast is important, but it is equally important that things aren't too bright. You should avoid using extremes like #000000 and #ffffff unless you're really trying to make something highlight. #0f0f0f or even #202020 doesn't make an appreciable difference, at least to my eyes. Believe me, as a 50+ year old, I notice when it's hard to read things.
- Myndex 4y agoNOWHERE, absolutely nowhere in the article did I suggest using #fff/#000 On the contrary, I highly recommend that for light backgrounds the, background directly under body text be something like #e6e2dd. I explain this in the article.
- hexo 4y agoYou should avoid giving "advice". Because of ppl like you I have to constantly mess with CSS and have ton of extensions just to fix colors, just because you knew better.... oh my.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- hnlmorg 4y agoPaper isn't typically a pure "#FFFFFF" white and if you'd bothered to read the article instead of rage quitting after the sub-heading you'd realise that the article is advocating exactly the same point you are. Let me quote it for you: > On a light or white background, body text should be black. In many cases it is more appropriate to reduce contrast by darkening the background. As an example a white #FFF background is really too bright for comfortable reading, a background such as #e8e2dd provides a less fatiguing background. Sorry if I come across blunt but if you're going to be critical about an article then at least read more than the sub-heading first.
- bluenose69 4y agoAmen to this.
- svnpenn 4y ago> And before we continue, let’s make it absolutely clear that we have no control of the color of the text in this very article, as it is hosted through Medium.com, which features poor visual accessibility of their site design. Sorry, but you don't get to excuse yourself with that. The text/background in your own post is awful, as others have already mentioned. Medium is a notoriously bloated platform, with their ad heavy and JS heavy pages producing a generally poor user experience. No one is forcing you to use Medium, you could easily use GitHub pages, SubStack, or any number of other, better options. Options that allow you to control your own CSS. By continuing to use Medium, you are saying (basically yelling) that you really don't believe in what you're writing, at least not enough to do anything about it.
- Myndex 4y agoI also use GitHub pages, and other sites, and my own independent sites. But, none get the level of readers — this one article on Medium received tens of thousands of reads. For some of the other materials in teh current research, see the catalog at git.myndex.com Thank you for reading.
- david422 4y agoAgreed. "Do as I say, not as I do" doesn't fly.
- fleddr 4y agoAlso...always check the readability of type on Windows. I can instantly tell when a designer is using a Mac and never bothered to check how text renders on Windows. In particular with thin fonts a Mac may render it somewhat legible whilst it completely falls apart on Windows.
- xaedes 4y agoThe guidelines even specify a "minimum contrast:" which sadly seems to be interpreted as "use minimal contrast, at most this:", way too often.
- Myndex 4y agoSadly true, this has led to so much misinformation.
- Vladimof 4y agoThe worst use of that is here on HN.... When I enable show-dead, I want to be able to read them... You don't need to make their text near-white.
- justusthane 4y agoOr, for some reason, the entire body of text posts.
- okaleniuk 4y agoJan Tschichold, a famous typographer and book designer speaks against black on white. He says that the book paper should not be artificially whitened since too much contrast hurts readability just as too little.
- rafaelturk 4y agoOh the irony. White on purple article, and it's not even white.
- Myndex 4y agoYea, it's annoying. Medium does not allow the author to pick the text color. Believe it or not, this combo was the best contrast. Medium's fischer price CMS is really weak in this area.
- smcl 4y agoYeah it's rgb(238, 225, 243) which is, IMO, pretty close to ... grey
- Markoff 4y agoyou have issues with your display/eyesight, if you see there white, beause it's pink
- rafaelturk 4y agoYep! Even hex colors are misleading these days..
- jjkaczor 4y agoThe article was published April 1st... I am thinking this was intended to be a joke, as this is the first thing I noticed, breaking it's own rules for "clarity of text".
- Myndex 4y agoIt's Medium's CMS. Author has no control over the text color, and I've been experimenting with combinations trying to find something useful. An effort in futility. I'm planning on moving my articles to my own site... then... then this went viral. OMG. The true irony.
- mmis1000 4y agoGitHub used to have something like grey on dark blue in its dark theme. And it is nearly unreadable. Fortunately, they changed it to some sane color. https://userstyles.org/style_screenshots/199552_after.png?r=1652892683 https://userstyles.org/style_screenshots/199552_after.png?r=... I used to make user style just to make it readable. The top right is the original color of GitHub dark theme, and left bottom is the one I modified. Someone set the color must forget how srgb works. #808080 is not half of the light level. It's about 1/3.
- okaleniuk 4y agoAlso, why don't we let users decide which contrast works best for them? My https://wordsandbuttons.online/ https://wordsandbuttons.online/ uses default browser colors for anything other than interactive illustrations. For those, I just don't know how to make user choice work with the graphics they show since the graphics is always different from picture to picture, so I impose slightly tinted background as part of the palette.
- pabs3 4y agoUnfortunately the default browser colours for the web are always black text on white background and do not respect the user's desktop theme, be it dark or something else.
- junon 4y agoMost browsers provide the ability to customize colors.
- lelandfe 4y agoI am a frontend developer and could not tell you how to do that in Chrome.
- junon 4y agoPerhaps you don't have a vision disability that requires this. I don't see your point.
- lelandfe 4y agoSure, I can be less subtle: My job for the last decade has been to facilitate accessibility. Not only have I never heard of this control existing in native Chrome, I can't figure out how to do it. I'm doubtful, then, that we can consider this a remedy of any kind for accessibility issues. My hunch is that you mean that there are extensions that provide this – which I definitely have issues classing as "browsers providing" much in the way of anything.
- DemocracyFTW2 4y agoOne should say very clearly that black on white—#000000 on #ffffff—is a poor choice except on poor displays or in poor viewing conditions. Much better is a lightly greyish or ever-so-slightly yellowish/brownish background with a less than fully saturated black for the text. Printers have known this all along. Edit—author says so in his article. FWIW I might add that while my terminal emulator and my text editor both use light on dark color schemes, the way to make that work is to reduce contrasts. The most horribly eye straining web sites use incredibly harsh contrasts. I can work for many hours in both apps before getting anywhere near the condition that many 'dark mode' web sites can cause in a minute or so.
- coldtea 4y agoHe says... while writing white on purple...
- rpdillon 4y agoThe author goes out of the way to mention multiple times, the first at the top of the post, that Medium offers very little control in this regard. I think the post is intended as a criticism of the very platform it's hosted on, among others. Edit: typo
- coldtea 4y ago>that Medium offers very little control in this regard I've used Medium to post, and it sure allows one no to use white on purple. In fact, Medium's default, even if not 100% black, is more legible than his choice.
- rpdillon 4y agoI see. Seems like a factual disagreement, in that case: > When viewed through the TangledWeb publication, we have set it to a dark mode, which is probably the best contrast possible per how Medium is configured. I have never used Medium, so I can't comment in this regard.
- rsstack 4y ago"True" black on white contrast ratio: 21 Medium's default very-dark-grey on white contrast ratio: 14.54 This bizarre theme-that-makes-it-hard-to-focus-for-non-contrast-reasons contrast ratio: 14.52 If legibility was important to this author, they could have done the bare minimum to improve the legibility on their own site. The bare minimum was to not change the default theme. A bit above that but more honest to their claim: host somewhere else and use a darker grey.
- petercooper 4y agoThe author goes out of the way to mention multiple times, the first at the top of the post, that Medium offers very little control in this regard. Maybe true, but this is the first Medium page I've seen with this bizarre color scheme and I hit perhaps 50-60 Medium articles a week in my work. So it's certainly something to do with the theming of his site.
- memorable 4y agoFrick Medium. https://archive.ph/OFOdi https://archive.ph/OFOdi
- jorgemf 4y ago> Please Stop Using Grey Text Open the website and the first thing I see is dark background and grey-light text. Close the website. The website doesn't stand for the claims.
- Minor49er 4y agoThis is the second paragraph in the article: > And before we continue, let’s make it absolutely clear that we have no control of the color of the text in this very article, as it is hosted through Medium.com, which features poor visual accessibility of their site design.
- jorgemf 4y agoIt is his website in medium, he could have chosen any other color for the background and make it not as horrible as it is for reading. Or he could have chosen another platform to publish his content.
- viach 4y agoSays someone who uses white font on purple background
- jjkaczor 4y agoIt's not even white... More like a "grey-purple".
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- franze 4y agoGrey is a good indicator of the inner workings of a company regarding their website decision process. Grey text = weak design department with damn expensive monitors Grey background = management dabbles in design questions Grey text & other-grey background = decision by committee Any color discussed long enough becomes grey.
- dredmorbius 4y agoI've seen speculation that grey may be selected as may mock-up tools default to a greyed "Greeked" text, or just grey lines, as placeholders for actual textual content. When it comes time to install the actual payload, it's presumed / assumed that grey is the text colour, or everyone (designers, reviewers, project owners / managers) are so used to the (non-semantic, incidental) placeholder representation that an unreadable text is simply accepted or presumed as the intent. There are less charitable interpretations as well. One fix would be to insist on high-constrast text in all phases of the design process. Yes, it will be visually distracting, but text should be your principle asset and intention.
- account42 4y agoWhy would you use a different color for the placeholder text in the first place - the whole point of having you design filled with lorem ipsum instead of empty space is to see how it would look with real content.
- dredmorbius 4y agoI suspect it's to put the emphasis on the spatial layout / dynamic features. Though ultimately it would seem that this is in fact starting point to failure itself.
- joeman1000 4y agoAnyone interested in readability and accessibility should look at the ‘modus-themes’ (emacs) by Protesilaos Stavrou [1]. They’re highly accessible and highly readable themes, with complete and thorough documentation and commentary on the design choices. His website should also serve as a benchmark for readability. [1]: https://protesilaos.com/emacs/modus-themes https://protesilaos.com/emacs/modus-themes
- Eduard 4y agoWhy should "anyone interested in readability and accessibility" read a infinitely long text discussing exclusively emacs- and Guix-specific stuff?
- joeman1000 4y agoSimply because they’re inerested. If they’re not interested they won’t… want to read it, you pedant. It’s very obviously in the domain of accessibility and design, so may interest people who care about that.
- IYasha 4y agoYes, please. We don't need any shades of grey on textual content.
- retSava 4y agoHere's my bookmarklet that turns all text black. javascript:(function(){var%20i,x;for(i=0;x=document.getElementsByTagName("*")[i];++i)x.style.color="#000000";})();
- BeefWellington 4y agoIdentical functionality, different way to skin the cat: javascript:document.querySelectorAll("*").forEach((x)=>{x.style.color="#000"})
- johnday 4y agoThis will be significantly faster, since it only queries the DOM once, rather than O(n) times.
- retSava 4y agoI don't recall seeing this taking any more time than being instantaneous so that in itself wouldn't be a UX problem, but I also do like when things are not unnecessarily wasteful, so grateful for that cleaner approach :). Tbh, I dislike web programming and anything close to DOM, I'm more of a backend and embedded kind of guy. I haven't had success in making a similar one that removes "overflow: hidden" from all elements. That in combo with removing anything with fixed position is a quick and dirty way of bypassing GDPR pop-ups. Say you come to a new site, eg via a HN link. Boom, I have to indicate my stance towards tracking and ads by rejecting all cookies, and objecting to "legitimate" interests. That takes time, so instead I have a bookmarklet that removes anything with position:fixed (the gdpr pop-up). The second piece would be re-enabling scroll by disabling the "overflow: hidden". I do this manually now by inspecting.
- johnday 4y agoI do something similar! Can highly recommend greasemonkey for automating the process. Once it's in place it makes the web so much nicer.
- victorvscn 4y agoThis is 100% why I use Dark Reader. Even on my phone, right now, I'm using Kiwi. It has a "night mode" (which, by the way should not be the way to call a dark mode—I, and many others, use it all day). But I still use Dark Reader, because it has a crowdsourced WHAT TO INVERT and WHAT NOT TO INVERT which is AMAZING and fixes most situations.
- dredmorbius 4y agoFYI, "dark mode" looks pants on e-ink displays. Though Dark Reader can be tuned to give high-contrast light-background themes. The extension itself has a dark-mode formatting which cannot be changed, however.
- LAC-Tech 4y agoI'm a contrast junky. Can't stand modern IDE and editor colorschemes like solarized because they're too vague and murky. Give me strong colours god damn it.
- abdusco 4y agoAgreed. I also set up my IDE (Jetbrains) so that it switches between light and dark themes according to my system preferences (which reflects available daylight) Because reading code on a light theme is so much easier on the eyes during daytime. I don't understand why "coders" insist on dark mode everywhere all the time.
- planede 4y agoI find syntax highlighting to be much more visible in a dark theme. Otherwise I agree.
- planede 4y agoI'm in the same boat, I'm happy with tempus_future in neovim https://github.com/protesilaos/tempus-themes https://github.com/protesilaos/tempus-themes I have my custom theme for the 16 terminal colors, as tempus doesn't handle well dark <color>/light <color> contrast with the same <color>, and some terminal applications like to do that... But I'm not fully happy with my custom theme yet, the dark colors are too dark.
- dinkleberg 4y agoSince gray is every color with no saturation between white and black, blanket statements like this aren’t very useful. Pure black text is not needed everywhere. Make sure to keep the contrast levels nice and high, but experiment with low brightness grays and they may work better than pure black given in certain situations.
- jnovek 4y agoThis problem is so much bigger than low-contrast pages. Almost all technology of any kind selects in favor of aesthetics over equal access. I have moderate amblyopia and severe astigmatism. For a frame of reference, I only barely pass the driver’s license vision test when I renew my license (don’t worry I don’t actually drive). My vision has good days and bad days. My ophthalmologist thinks that I frequently have eye strain from looking at screens which further (temporarily) degrades my vision. Examples that I’ve run into _in the last 24 hours_. - Why can’t I choose the colors of web sites and applications? - Why can’t I choose (and override) the default typefaces on mobile browsers? - Why can’t I change the default system font for my iPhone or my Mac? - Why can’t I change the font size in modern video games? - Why do most desktop applications fall of the edge of the screen below 1080p? I rely on hacky tools to get by — e.g. momentarily dropping HIDPI or jail breaking devices. No one would want to use technology the way I have to. It sucks and it’s constantly getting worse.
- Markoff 4y agoUnrelated, but as European why do you need driver's license, if you don't drive, isn't there some equivalent to ID card in US not requiring any test?
- the_only_law 4y ago> isn't there some equivalent to ID card in US not requiring any test? Most states have something like this. Typically you fill out some forms and pay a fee to get a “State ID”. Just be prepared for people to give you shit about it occasionally when ID’d. If you’ve already gotten your drivers license in the past though, I don’t see any good reasons to get a new ID vs just renewing the driver license.
- jnovek 4y agoWhen I was a teenager my vision was better. It has degraded as I’ve aged. I do still technically pass the vision test, but I don’t think it tests for impairment from astigmatism very well. It’s not rational, but I think a big part of keeping my license is anxiety. It’s really challenging to get around in America without driving. Knowing that my license is still valid makes me feel less trapped.
- togaen 4y agoClickbait. All talk, no action. If the author actually believed what he wrote, he wouldn’t use medium. But he does, so he’s just trolling for clicks.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- Schopenhauer01 4y agoGrey text is much better than the violet background. This might be one of those GTP3 articles.
- altdataseller 4y agoAlso, use blue text for links, not black. Don’t be cute.
- dredmorbius 4y agoAnd an underline decoration, for those on e-ink devices who cannot distinguish either black or blue links from body text.
- mrg2k8 4y agoOn this, Opera (for Android, at least) has introduced a "Dark Web Pages" mode that forces all white websites to dark colors. It does wonders!
- lloydatkinson 4y agoIs this meant to be sarcasm? The entire site has gray text on a purple background. Sometimes the text is even a light purple still on a purple background.
- mdp2021 4y ago> Is this meant to be sarcasm The author, bound as you may know to the choice of the publisher, advocated for readability so that people could be encouraged to arrive at least to the actual first paragraph of text.
- Razengan 4y agoTell that to HN.
- dredmorbius 4y agoFirst, the experience of this article is vastly improved by reading it through Scribe, an alternate front end along the lines of Nitter, Invidious, Bibliogram, and Teddit: https://scribe.rip/please-stop-using-grey-text-3d3e71acfca8?gi=70cf8da7ece8 https://scribe.rip/please-stop-using-grey-text-3d3e71acfca8?... (Or your browser's Reader Mode, if available.) Secondly: as someone who's switched almost wholly to e-ink for online reading[1], the greyed-out text, or worse still, grey-on-grey experience is all the more aggrevating.[2] Fortunately for me, reading on my BOOX with Firefox, reader mode addresses the colour and font-face issues. Leaving me with a remaining third problem: scrolling. Touch-based scrolling through a document on mobile devices is itself a horrendous experience, and e-ink's latency makes this worse. At the highest display quality, scrolling causes the display to "shatter" into a sandstorm of pixels until movement is stopped. Given the nondeterministic nature of scrolling, trying to pick up where the original end-point of text was, and continue reading is ... difficult at best. Reducing image quality at least gets rid of the sandstorm effect (at a cost of display quality and increased ghosting), but scrolling remains uneven. An alternate browser, Einkbro, which has numerous e-ink optimisations, features pagninated navigation. Specific zones of the screen (my preference is lower right & left for next/previous) will navigate by (nearly) a full page, deterministically (I leave about a 10% overlap for continuity). It's still not as good as a fully-paginated document, as with PDF-based e-books, but it's worlds better than scrolling. I've been noticing how annoying online reading is for many reasons (ads, sidebar clutter, animations, and more), and was beginning to wonder if that was intrinsic to me or my device itself. Re-reading a 500 page novel this past week, on the device, I realised that no, it's mostly Web design / Web browser / Android interactions themselves, and that e-books are a vastly superior long-form format. Even tools such as Pocket which offer a "page flip" mode turn out to be a horrendous UI/UX in comparison: - The flipping is gesture, not region based. - Application features such as highlighting and tagging are not available in page-flip mode. It's necessary to scroll slightly to expose these. - Pagination is not fixed for the document, but is arbitrary depending on your position within the document when you initiated flip mode. Consequence: I rarely use Pocket for reading. Einkbro has one further trick up its sleeve, however: "save as ePub". Yes, you can save as PDF, which should be familiar from other browsers. As with these, the result is a statically-formatted document with fonts poorly-selected for static reading, page-clutter from the online experience, lines cut off between pages and running into both side and vertical margins and gutters, and a pile of increasingly-difficult-to-navigate single documents. Save-as-ePub:[6] - Largely succeeds in stripping out all non-main-body text from the article. - Standardises fonts to your ePub defaults. - Formats vertical and side margins. (I'd prefer these could be made larger, that's actually the fault of my e-book reader.) - Permits annotations of the document directly: highlighting, bookmarking, and both typed and handwritten annotations. - The kicker: Compiling multiple Web articles into a single ePub book. This might be a set of articles on a specific topic, on a date (or date range), material for a project, to be sent to a colleague, friend, or family member, etc. There are limitations , but it is transformational and uncannily brilliant. It also highlights that a tremendous problem with the Web is its very Webbyness. Einkbro has several other highly-useful features: - Font scaling ON THE MAIN TOOLBAR ITSELF. Not buried four levels deep within menus as in Firefox, or entirely nonexistant as with Chrome. - A "White Background" toggle, which mostly works. - A good "Reader Mode" feature, though IMO inferior to Firefox's. I'm often caught between Firefox's better reader mode and Einkbro's better navigation, at which point save-to-ePub is usually the best alternative. - Various interface quirks which have my relying on Firefox more for content discovery (often through HN), and Einkbro for long-form reading. But it's an excellent browser and if you're on an e-ink device, or even a tablet, I strongly recommend it. But yeah, the further I can get from a site's own design and styling, in general, the better. ________________________________ Notes: 1. Exception: when I'm commenting on specific sites and services, as one of my accomodations is to not have any account-based services on my e-ink reader, so yes, this is being typed on a colourised & emissive older tablet. 2. "Night mode" defaults are also exceptionally bad. TFA's choice of an exceedingly grapey-purple background renders as grey-on-black, which ... is pretty bad itself. Worse still are colour combinations of similar luminosity (say, red-green or red-blue) in which all distinction between text and background is lost. Even my own take on the "Motherfucking Website" motif, which tends to render well on most colour-emissive devices, is suboptimal on e-ink. I should add a @media query based on available colour depth and toggle colours to maximal contrast for e-ink. https://codepen.io/dredmorbius/full/KpMqqB https://codepen.io/dredmorbius/full/KpMqqB 3. Fonts matter. A lot. At 220 dpi, i much prefer serif to sans. 4. There are many other reasons for this, mind, I'm just referring to the navigation / interaction aspects. My years' old gripe list remains largely current, though there's been some small progress: https://old.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/5x2sfx/pocket_it_gets_worse_the_more_you_use_it/ https://old.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/5x2sfx/pocket_... 5. Expanded at length here: https://toot.cat/@dredmorbius/107958709435468728 https://toot.cat/@dredmorbius/107958709435468728 6. I've had a lengthy GitHub discussion with the developer: https://github.com/plateaukao/browser/issues/107 https://github.com/plateaukao/browser/issues/107
- mananaysiempre 4y agoNote the licensing note in the repository[1] of the APCA™ index the author’s company[2] promotes: > The files currently in this repository are presently considered pre-release, and as such do not have a permanent license attached. In this repositiory, all files present are under a time-barred beta license, and intended for use with web-based content only, and not for any other use without written permission. The non-pre-release stuff[3] offered to W3C is better but still seems to be intended to end up non-FOSS: > Files in this repository are licensed to the W3/AGWG under their cooperative agreement for use with WCAG accessibility guidelines for web-based content only, and not for any other use. Similarly, the online calculators[4,5] referenced in the author’s posts (not this one) are > PROPRIETARY AND NOT LICENSED FOR THIRD PARTY USE. (The question being, of course, how much of this is copyrightable at all and to what extent these terms are just sowing legal FUD.) [1] https://github.com/Myndex/SAPC-APCA/ https://github.com/Myndex/SAPC-APCA/ [2] https://www.myndex.com/CVD/ https://www.myndex.com/CVD/ [3] https://github.com/Myndex/apca-w3/ https://github.com/Myndex/apca-w3/ [4] https://www.myndex.com/APCA/ https://www.myndex.com/APCA/ [5] https://www.myndex.com/BPCA/ https://www.myndex.com/BPCA/
- Myndex 4y agoNot that it's relevant to this thread, and I have clarified this elsewhere: This is destined as open source. The only reason the public beta has a time limited license is to make it clear that the pre-release materials needs to be discarded once it's stable and in release. BECAUSE this is destined to be part of various standards, it is important to prevent "wrong versions" from circulating (to the degree possible) this has already caused problems, hence the current temporary license. Any developer that wants a longer term license only needs to request it, so that we can have contact and follow through on changes. I hope that clarifies the matter.
- skerit 4y agoKind of weird to assume the WCAG is the reason people started to use grey text.
- beeforpork 4y agoAgreed! But it is funny that the article uses grey text itself for the headline paragraph: .fc { color: rgba(201, 184, 211, 1); }
- Myndex 4y agoNo choice thanks to Medium.
- trhoad 4y ago> And before we continue, let’s make it absolutely clear that we have no control of the color of the text in this very article, as it is hosted through Medium.com, which features poor visual accessibility of their site design. Further, Medium prevents their users from selecting black text as a choice. While Medium’s “Fischer-Price-simple” content creation is easy to use, it is also extremely limited, and fails in accessibility in areas beyond color. Perhaps this article can serve as a wake up call regarding this issue. So - why on EARTH are you publishing there? And for what it's worth, the areas that fail WCAG AA for colour contrast on this page are areas entirely within the control of the publication.
- Myndex 4y agoThe article points out why AA is not a salient contrast metric, but also not true—in the design page, you have very limited control, and then after leaving the design page, the color you selected are changed and used differently (i.e. the highlight).
- heywoodlh 4y ago> So - why on EARTH are you publishing there? I had this exact thought. Maybe it's just me, but I grow increasingly tired of content published Medium. I'm not really too sure if I can nail down exactly what it is, though. Maybe I am too influenced by Anti-Medium arguments. Idk.
- tedmiston 4y ago> I had this exact thought. Maybe it's just me, but I grow increasingly tired of content published Medium. Medium post pages are heavy, load slowly, and have all kinds of unnecessary junk in them. Also, the free article limit authwall is a nuisance.
- tasuki 4y ago> So - why on EARTH are you publishing there? I also dislike medium and also wonder... Perhaps it's the most low-effort way to blog? Or perhaps medium "is where the eyeballs are"?
- szundi 4y agoPlease stop loving the aesthetics of grey text
- kbelder 4y agoI agree, but I fear you're being sarcastic? I can't tell.
- btbuildem 4y agoIt's a little ironic that the author chose to use a light purple text over a dark purple background.
- halotrope 4y agoUsing Medium is way worse for readability than using grey text. Long body text should have sufficient contrast and good typography. Using only maximum contrast for all text "just because it worked for books" is bad advice. Not only was there not really a choice when it came to books, also books reflect natural light instead of emitting light. This is fundamentally different and needs to be taken into consideration when designing. The web does offer incredible flexibility for improving information transmission with _good_ design. Establishing visual hierarchies, guiding the eye and emphasizing things, just to name a few. Just look at your code without syntax highlighting. The issue is - as with most things - that there is a mix of bad taste, carelessness and lack of education going on. Just like the design of this article.
- mdp2021 4y ago> books reflect natural light instead of emitting light. This is fundamentally different But do not forget that there are other technologies around: EPD, OLED do not quite overlap with that general idea. And both call for maximum contrast (EPD to reach a decent threshold for contrast, OLED to get a completely mute background on one pole and to be energy efficient on the other). Edit: I forgot "projectors" (there where the issue of contrast is nightmare). > maximum contrast ... Not only was there not really a choice when it came to books Not really. Try reading a printed book with non-black text. Your "eyes" should tell you it's "not good".
- halotrope 4y agoYes I agree that there are special considerations for e.g OLED where I also prefer pitch-black background. My argument was just that the medium can hugely influence the design and needs to be taken into consideration. Also books are kind of a special category as they contain a LOT of text. So legibility really is the primary concern. With the often shorter prose on the web I feel we can give a little leeway. I would trade dark gray text for removal of intrusive ads any day of the week. Also a lot of books (at least in Europe) are also set in Serif typefaces. Something which did not really translate fully to the web either. Stuff like max line length, font size and kerning are also very important and often neglected elements of typography on the web.
- donohoe 4y agoTo be clear, the author is well-intentioned but wrong. Nothing is so simple to be just black and white (see what I did there!) I say this so that other HN users that influence the design of their products don't walk away and start making changes that negatively impact their users. This has been studies and there is a ton of research. Here are a few with selected excerpts- please read the articles in full! "white text on black backgrounds creates a visual fuzzing effect for people with astigmatism called “halation”." Source: https://www.essentialaccessibility.com/blog/accessibility-for-people-with-astigmatism https://www.essentialaccessibility.com/blog/accessibility-fo... "A research study found that “black text on a white background overstimulates the OFF ganglion cells while white text on black background overstimulates the ON ganglion cells.” This finding means that “white text from a black screen could inhibit myopia, while black text on white background may stimulate myopia.” The study advises against reading black text on a white background due to the striking effects of contrast polarity." Source: https://uxmovement.com/content/why-you-should-never-use-pure-black-for-text-or-backgrounds/ https://uxmovement.com/content/why-you-should-never-use-pure... A collection of further reading: https://www.esa.org/communication-engagement/2018/08/03/resource-of-the-week-what-is-most-accessible-light-text-on-dark-background-or-vice-versa/ https://www.esa.org/communication-engagement/2018/08/03/reso...
- Myndex 4y agoNowhere in the article did I advocate for black and white — and far from that. This article is part of research I am doing on readability contrast. Also, "uxmovement" is about the last place to be taking advice on the subject. Nevertheless, The subject is much more nuanced, but articles like the one you linked lead to misunderstanding. Spatial frequency is critical, and it is spatial frequency that is the driver of contrast perception for smaller stimuli, particularly for small thin body text, where luminance contrast needs are substantially higher than for large bold headlines. I said as much in the article.
- ImaCake 4y agoFor those who have this kind of issue you should try out darkreader. Aside from doing a great job of dark mode for any website, the customisation allows you to fix the shitty contrast on most websites so that you dont get headache from reading it.
- jameshart 4y ago> in 2005, prior to WCAG 2, major websites such as CNN, Yahoo, About, and Wired used black text. Not long after WCAG 2 was adopted, those same sites were reducing contrast, moving to ever lighter grey texts. Correlation is not causation. Possible alternative version of this history: WCAG came out with its recommendations when it did precisely because trends in design at the time were towards using different font weights and colors, as cleartype rendering was becoming universal and displays were moving away from CRT to LCD and becoming higher resolution. (LCD monitor sales only surpassed CRT monitors in 2003. The concept of a 'retina display' dates to 2010.) In the absence of WCAG contrast guidance, the wild west would have won. Instead, by putting a line in the sand for contrast, WCAG helped ensure that design trend was held in check.
- notorandit 4y agoIdiots are everywhere. Also in web technology workgroups. I don't see how maximum computed contrast like black (RGB:000000) on white (RGB:FFFFFF) can be any better of a shade of gray on pale yellow or lighter gray. A lot of web frameworks, frontends and apps like these grayish text, fading widgets and the likes. This is deliberate stupidity and nothing can prove the opposite.
- mdp2021 4y ago(Please check the formulation of your post: it can be read contradictorily.)
- notorandit 4y agoCool! One actually read my comment!
- FpUser 4y agoDid not really read the article - absolutely ugly choice of colors that hurts my eyes. But yes this light grey on white (often using thin fonts) causes me to immediately leave. Modern design is most often about creating some crap with zero idea about the ergonomics.
- mdp2021 4y ago> causes me to immediately leave There is no strict need to leave: you view client-side material and there exist tricks to modify page styles.
- FpUser 4y agoIf I am in desperate need I'll find a way to read. Otherwise I have very little desire for extra clicking
- pipeline_peak 4y agoHave you tried modifying the pages background color? I don't have the best web dev knowledge, but this medium page isn't very easy.
- mdp2021 4y agoRight, I see the background in Medium is non evident, an attribute of class '.ev' ( body > div#root > div.a.b.c > div.l.ev )
- pipeline_peak 4y agoI got it now, background-color's box was so dark it appeared as black, was too lazy to read the rgb value.
- Jerrrry 4y agoHackernews is worse in this regard, yet little mention ever. Downvote me and see - this comment fades into contrast-obscurity. Downvoted comments turning grey/on greyer is beyond dumb, adding another UI-bezel on top of the pile of shit that is popular (>51%) opinion echo chamber. Reddit hides comments via minimizing. Hackernews literally makes it more difficult to read. anyone else notice the lack of outrage? it's the worst conceivable way of dealing with this. it has, though, made me think about how contrasting/conterverial/more useful discussion chains get presented, at a UI level, and how that affects further participation.
- cyral 4y ago> Downvote me and see - this comment fades into contrast-obscurity. 50/50 chance you get an upvote instead because the buttons are so small and close together on mobile. This is where I really like the Apollo app for Reddit. On it, you swipe left or right on the comment to access actions like reply, upvote, downvote. Similar concept in a lot of mobile mail clients for archiving or deleting.
- mdp2021 4y ago> swipe left or right on the comment to access actions like Not surprising for a product that also in other appearances promotes fast use and quick reaction instead of pondered response.
- cyral 4y agoIt's a third party app. It's also the difference between trying to click a small button versus using a swipe gesture. You still have to write the reply. Not sure what your gripe is here, I'm talking about how their UI is more friendly towards mobile users.
- ycuser2 4y agoNot only that. Why the text submited in the starting post is grey? That's a strange decision to me. E.g.: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31418908 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31418908
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- goatherders 4y agoOne of Apple's more egregious contributions to technology. Almost every web client I've ever had asks for grey text and sends apple.com as an example of what they like.
- goatherders 4y agoDownvotes....LOL. I forgot how much it upsets people on HN to take issue with Apple in any way, shape, or form.
- coolgoose 4y agoOn a website, that has purple gray on a purple background. Facepalming so hard right now.
- idk1 4y agoMost things on Medium are unreadable to me because I've usually hit the three articles a month limit.
- jbverschoor 4y agoWhat a bs article.. the book is not white and ink is not black. I stopped after that example.. Black on white (without any tooling to soften or to check ambient light) is hard on the eyes. It’s like looking in the sun while reading something. Terminals with CRT monitors were also using 50% white on something that looked like black, but was actually gray
- Myndex 4y agoThen you missed the key part of the article as nowhere in the article did I ever advocate #fff/#000
- mdp2021 4y ago> to check ambient light But that is an implicit requirement, part of the setup...
- jbverschoor 4y agoI meant tools like night shift and truetone on mac. > For over 1000 years black text on white paper has been the best practice for printed texts worldwide No it hasn't.. It's gray on yellow Later the article reads: > Join the Readability Revolution. Ideally make your text no less than 16 px, and 18 px or larger is preferred No thank you. I'm on a hidpi/retina screen. The article also tells us that body text should be black black. If he knew aboutvanta black, it'd probably be vantablack. It's wrong. I'd advise the writer to do some DTP/Print/Prepress work.
- mdp2021 4y ago> gray on yellow But of course, all "black", "white", "gray", "yellow" etc are fuzzy concepts in nature. And in nature, the quality of the medium and of the environment dominate in the visual effect. On a display, "black" and "white" are abstract - maximum and minimum. They are a shard of the final effect, that passes through other parameters of the medium and of the environment (especially, "how much light here and there and directed where"). Insisting on comparing "colour on display" vs "colour on book" is strongly misleading in this context.
- WhitneyLand 4y agoI’d be happy with a standard prominent icon/button for “Fix Accesibility” that lets color/size/font etc be quickly and easily adjusted.
- mdp2021 4y agoIn general: when reading, one may normally want to maximize contrast while minimizing "beamed" luminosity (meaning, the amount of light made to directly hit the eye). That is for eye comfort. So, yes: we adjust text for maximum contrast (#000 to #FFF) and adjust the light accordingly. This is expected behaviour. Which, by the way, is also in general energy efficient.
- mmis1000 4y agoThat is the part I don't really understand. If your screen setting make the black on white / white on black way too intense to the eyes. Shouldn't people adjust their screen to match their need? Why on the earth a website lower its own contrast because it expect everyone using a over contrast screen. It basically make the site unreadable for everyone that has a sane setting.
- jml7c5 4y agoI do prefer #000 over #FFF (or vice-versa) and generally agree with your sentiment, but it is worth noting that portions of overly-bright screen do not generally trigger the "seared eyeballs" sensation. There are scenarios where allowing a scant 1% of a photo (for example) to be over-bright means much more range in the rest of the image. Personally, I prefer a display that simply matches the static contrast ratio of the human eye. I use ambient lighting to keep my pupils from dilating when viewing a dark screen. (Which has the side-benefit of avoiding the dark-to-light transition that people hate so much.) Unrelated fun idea for hardware engineers: develop a GPU that outputs average image brightness before each scanout. This allows the monitor (or GPU itself, though you'd suffer quantization issues) to slowly ramp during dark-to-bright transitions. Consumers would love the feature: people like to stare at devices in dark rooms (bed etc) but melt their eyeballs every time they navigate from a dark page to a light one. This would prevent that pain.
- mmis1000 4y ago> There are scenarios where allowing a scant 1% of a photo (for example) to be over-bright means much more range in the rest of the image I think that is why hdr invented at first place. Sdr is never meant to present "sun casting on you directly". The sdr #fff in hdr setting is called "paper white". Looking at paper shouldn't hurt your eye in reality and nor does on screen.
- dec0dedab0de 4y agoI just had to interview someone who used grey text in their resume. I had to change the color to be able to read it. It may have been the first time I edited something in word in almost a decade.
- hwc 4y agoMy web site is black text on white background (or white on black if `@media (prefers-color-scheme:dark)` is set). If someone wants LESS contrast, they can change the settings on their monitor.
- Eduard 4y agoWhat about people that cannot physically interact with their monitor (MS, missing hands, Parkinson)? What about people using someone else's computer and hence having no control about changing such settings (public computer, pair programming)? It makes sense to make stuff accessible by default.
- sandworm101 4y agoAn article about computer text with no reference to Apple's influence? Computers used to be green or white text on black backgrounds. You know who changed that? Apple. Their push for "It looks like it will when printed", that culminated with those silly rotating CRT screens, caused the shift to black-on-white. That marketing was also appealing for schools where students were expected to print assignments. Microsoft then followed along. The net result was decades of needless eyestrain for billions of people. I cringe every time I see someone open a black-on-white document up on a projector. White-on-black is infinitely easier to read in almost all conditions.
- elzbardico 4y agoNops. this was a natural evolution and a with plenty of historical precedents. "The Mother of All Demos" had dark text on white background. Xerox Star for obvious reasons also had dark text on white background.
- aidenn0 4y agoI really wish there were two "white" values that were software accessable. To comfortably read black on white text, I turn my backlight down, but to watch a movie, I turn it up. This makes sense because, presumably, the brightest thing in a movie will be brighter than a piece of paper...
- account42 4y agoSo basically you want movies to be treated as high-dynamic range content while most applications are treated as having a lower dynamic range so #FFFFF will not be the max brightness of your monitor. I think this is the direction we are moving in with HDR monitors and may already be how some operating systems work (except maybe the part of treating non-HDR movies as having a higher dynamic range than standard applications).
- aidenn0 4y agoI don't have HDR content nor HDR displays, so, I suppose I want something lower than standard (LDR?) for "office" content, and I want the lower dynamic range to be accomplished by lowering the maximum brightness. I first noticed this with some video games (Maybe Hexan or Quake?) versus Word 2.0; however, back then my monitor had brightness and contrast knobs on the front so it was trivial to switch (IIRC, brightness adjusted black-level, contrast adjusted white-level).
- Avamander 4y agoContrast rules, font sizes, colours and contrast, button spacing and size all depend on way too many things to have an one-size-fits-all solution. There simply isn't one, some people learned it a while ago (https://www.thestar.com/news/insight/2016/01/16/when-us-air-force-discovered-the-flaw-of-averages.html https://www.thestar.com/news/insight/2016/01/16/when-us-air-...). I don't want forced contrast or font size that's suitable for people with eyesight issues the same way people with eyesight issues don't want my dark theme or zoom level. Website makers should learn to design for all, but not for everyone at the same time.
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- furyofantares 4y agoThe contrast example images near the bottom are good. I almost missed them because the article really goes on quite a bit without adding anything enlightening, it just sort of repeats the same claims (or insults) a lot.
- WaitWaitWha 4y agoThis happens even in physical books. Have any of you seen the last few iteration of PMI's "A Guide to The Project Management Body of Knowledge PMBOK Guide"? The pages are gray with black text on it. at nearly 1000 pages, it is exhausting to the eyes.
- westcort 4y agoThis bookmarklet is one way to fix it: https://www.locserendipity.com/Hyper.html https://www.locserendipity.com/Hyper.html
- jvanderbot 4y agoare there tools that can automatically assess visual contrast and readability?
- bborud 4y agoAnd then he goes ahead and uses purple on purple. sigh I absolutely hate light text on dark background. There are a few sites I'd really like to follow (hello hackaday), but their insistence on light text on dark background makes them a pain to read. And it kind of feels like the website says "because fuck you". There is no shortage of "helpful" people who suggest I use all manner of browser plugins to "fix" poor design choices. Eh, no. That is not a solution. If people want to be oddball and weird they can do whatever they want, but I won't be spending much time on their websites.
- youeseh 4y agoAs a counterpoint, for me light text on a dark background is easier to read than black text on a white background. Go figure. So much so that I sometimes create dark-mode CSS user scripts for sites that don't offer a dark mode.
- bborud 4y agoFor me it depends and I am not entirely sure I understand why. I use a relatively dark blue/green background in VS Code, with light, low saturation yellowish base color for the code. Before VS Code I used the same dark color scheme for 25+ years in Emacs. But this is for editing code where I have a bunch of colors that have a semantic job to do. The colors are a bit easier to identify precisely against a darker background. And I don't actually read code per se - I scan and orient by shape (formatting) most of the time. So editing code is very distinct from reading. For prose/text I find it tiring to have a dark background. Not least because people get the contrast wrong because they don't know that it is different for dark backgrounds. And from an aesthetic point of view it strikes me as a bit ... well, demonstrative and perhaps childish. I'm sure this impression isn't shared by everyone, but that's the feeling i get. And then there's what you can make work on the web. (Interesting observation: I'm a big fan of what Erik Spiekermann says about typography - yet both the book he wrote for Adobe ("Stop Stealing Sheep & Find Out How Type Works") and a book about him ("Hello, I am Erik") have horribly annoying typesetting. One has horribly ugly guillemets that look like someone has taken a metal file to the type, the other has type in white-on-pink, which ought to qualify for a severe paddlin'. Is there a rule that whenever someone tries to write something about typography, things go wrong? :-). One possible explanation might be in one of Spiekermann's writings (can't remember where), where he emphasizes that "good tyography" isn't always the best choice because what people are used to plays a really big role. So a poor type can in some circumstances be better than a well designed type, simply because people are more familiar with it, so they'll have less trouble reading text typeset in the bad, but familiar, type)
- ivanhoe 4y agoFor me this light pinkish text on the dark purple background is far worse choice... it's not just the eye strain that I felt immediately, it also has this anxious and aggressive vibe. Good choice of color palette for a striptease club, but not so much for a page with a lot of text IMHO...
- Myndex 4y agoUnfortunately, Medium does not allow setting the text color — they set it automatically based on the background... After trying several combinations, I've mostly given up with that site and am planning on moving to another.
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- cryptecks 4y agoIt is so, so hard to take anything this writer takes seriously when the color scheme of the article/Medium channel itself is so atrocious.
- Myndex 4y agoThank you for the feedback... I change the scheme regularly, as part of a series of user experience experiments. It's currently in Dark Mode because Medium's current restrictions on light mode made the article unreadable. (That is, choosing any color other than #fff for the background and Medium made the text so light grey it could not be read).
- dredmorbius 4y ago"How the Web Became Unreadable" (2016) So why are designers resorting to lighter and lighter text? When I asked designers why gray type has become so popular, many pointed me to the Typography Handbook, a reference guide to web design. The handbook warns against too much contrast. It recommends developers build using a very dark gray (#333) instead of pitch black (#000). The theory espoused by designers is that black text on a white background can strain the eyes. Opting for a softer shade of black text, instead, makes a page more comfortable to read. Adam Schwartz, author of “The Magic of CSS,” reiterates the argument... https://www.wired.com/2016/10/how-the-web-became-unreadable/ https://www.wired.com/2016/10/how-the-web-became-unreadable/
- Uptrenda 4y agoThis guys website uses micro-text and he's criticizing readability. La-mao.
- EricE 4y agoWish I could upvote more than once. Also find it ridiculous they published their screed on Medium, one of the most text unfriendly websites around. The US Digital Web Design System has one of the best, easy to understand discussions of color and contrast and I always share it with as many designers as I can: https://designsystem.digital.gov/design-tokens/color/overview/ https://designsystem.digital.gov/design-tokens/color/overvie... Color and accessibility are closely linked and I wish more people would be far more practical and less fashionable about it.
- Myndex 4y agoMedium is lame for more reasons than you might imagine, I have not had the time to move things to another site though. If you want, my catalog of current contrast research resources is listed at git.myndex.com
- CookieCrisp 4y agoI may be naïve, but I have a hard time believing Medium hasn't done plenty of tests on how text is displayed on their site, and chosen the ones that have kept users there the longest.
- zzo38computer 4y agoI also dislike their specifying colours/fonts; often they have too big fonts. As the end user, I like to specify my own. In the old version of Firefox that I have, I can disable CSS, and often do because I dislike the CSS included in the web page. As an author, I prefer not to define colours and fonts at all, except to specify which text must be displayed using fix pitch fonts. The end user can specify their own colours and fonts.
- tasuki 4y ago> The end user can specify their own colours and fonts. Most don't though, unless your audience is technical.
- mattymf 4y agoSometimes highlighting all the text on a site helps me read and understand faster.
- Myndex 4y agoYea, I do that often.