3 ms·

Why not change the background to black? The issue isn't yellow, it's white.

• TheRealPomax 4y ago
  The issue will definitely still be yellow, and now your design system has to deal with "and do everything a second time, but now for dark mode" because dark mode has a completely different set of equally annoying problems.
• dsmmcken 4y ago
  The relative luminance will still make the yellow "feel" brighter than the others. In the article, the initial stated goal was to have the colours carry a similar relative level of emphasis.
  • WorldMaker 4y ago
    Isn't that the real problem here? Yellow is evolutionarily a "high emphasis" color. The perceptual color contrast between yellow and black is one of the highest ratios in human vision (more generally, in mammalian vision). It's among the reasons that bumblebees, bananas, dandelions, and yellowjackets co-evolved their colors. If you don't want the weird perceptual emphasis inversions of yellow, maybe don't use yellow? The article points out the commonly held reason to use it is the "traffic color patterns", but it is easy to forget that early traffic lights intentionally put the highest emphasis/most "alert" color in the middle, because that is the shortest and most dangerous phase and needs the most attention. Plus, as other comments keep pointing out even modern traffic lights in most countries today think yellow is too strong an emphasis color and have shifted towards amber/orange.
• alt227 4y ago
  Yep, you've just proven the complexity of this issue.