5 ms·

What is the reason for not having #000 on #FFF or #FFF on #000? Personally, I find the contrast suboptimal in any other combination.

sgk284 11y ago
Contrast tends to be a balance. #000 on #FFF (or vice-versa) rarely ever occurs in nature. It also tends to strain eyes. Optimal contrast for most people tends to involve a dark grey, as seen on her website. The easiest design trick to make a website more reader friendly is to move a black font to a grey font. (Obviously there are exceptions and personal preference involved, such as yours)
- lucianmarin 11y ago
  There’s no display with infinite contrast. #000 and #FFF are some sort of gray on any display. If you lower the display brightness to save battery life, high contrast is the only thing that works OK.
- jasode 11y ago
  >#000 on #FFF (or vice-versa) rarely ever occurs in nature. It also tends to strain eyes. Optimal contrast for most people tends to involve a dark grey, Is there actual scientific research that supports this? Most printed books have dark black ink instead of grey ink. (Although the paper of the pages may not be #FFF white but an off white.) In the office, the laser printers lay down dark black toner on crisp white paper. The paper brightness can be ISO 98 or even ISO 102 and the black toner is extremely comfortable to read. If your statement was true, I would think there would be a massive demand for dark grey toner printed on light grey paper because it is "less strain on the eyes." The evolution of Amazon Kindles are also moving towards better contrast. Early models were dark grey e-ink on light grey background. The latest models are getting closer to the ideal of black text on white background and the customer reviews support that improvement. A comparison datapoint: Using F12 inspector, I notice that sarahwerner.net paragraphs uses rgb(68,68,68) while HN posts' text use rgb(0,0,0). I think most of would find HN text to be more comfortable to read.
  - Keyframe 11y ago
    Is there actual scientific research that supports this? I don't know about OP, but in painting and in video/film art pure black and white are encouraged to be avoided. There they are called superblack and superwhite. In paintings it's because there is rarely (or not at all) such color in nature and in video (same for painting) also because it used to degrade signal for some reason in analogue era (strong yellow was avoided as well).
  - sp332 11y ago
    But HN has a shaded background, which still reduces the contrast.
    - jasode 11y ago
      If the non-white background is an offsetting factor, why isn't the fact that #000 is actually realized on LCD/LED monitors as "dark grey" also an offsetting factor to reduce contrast? Apparently, it looks like there's a difference of opinions (rather than scientific rigor) whether the "dark grey" of #000 is "light enough". I'm fine with it ultimately boiling down to subjective aesthetics but sgk284's post made it sound like #000 eyestrain was scientific fact.
  - DanBC 11y ago
    White paper doesn't have glare, unlike some monitors.
  - vsync 11y ago
    Paper doesn't shine into your eyes. We also try to avoid staring into the sun, for the same reason.
    - mrob 11y ago
      What objectively measurable difference is there between reflected and transmitted light? Polarization might be different, but that's something that's only barely perceptible to humans. I don't think it's plausible that it could affect legibility or eye strain. ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haidinger%27s_brush https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haidinger%27s_brush )
- DanBC 11y ago
  I agree with you, but her website is hard to read for some people. If people are going to tweak contrast they should have dark text on an off-white background, rather than strog white background and mid-grey text.
- marssaxman 11y ago
  If my screen is too bright, I'll turn it down. I'd strongly prefer that designers not try to make the decision for me, when there is no possible way they can have more information about my reading environment than I do.
exodust 11y ago
As someone mentioned, black text on a glowing white LED background is unnatural. Our eyes are not subjected to that anywhere else in life. "Eye strain" might be overly dramatic, but certainly fatigue will happen earlier in bright contrasty reading conditions. Designers often want pure white backgrounds though, they love their white backgrounds! So the only improvement possible is to increase the text from #000 to something like #222. This does not mean the text won't look black anymore, it simply takes the edge off but still looks black. Obviously the lady's blog she wanted grey so she went with #444. Ideally though pure white background should be avoided if there's pages and pages of text to read. "Paper white" is what e-readers aim for. Thank God the Kindle app for tablets allows background colours to be reduced. I like the "newspaper white" tone, with a touch of sepia thrown in. Perfect! #FFF text on #000 background is the worst. Many designers I've worked with over the years agree. Paragraphs of text will "shimmer" due to the extreme contrast. If there's a lot of text on the page, never have it #fff on #000. Bring the white down a notch and/or the black up a notch. It will still look like white on black but just look softer and better.
- jasode 11y ago
  >Ideally though pure white background should be avoided I can buy into eye fatigue from the background being mostly arctic white (#FFFFFF) such as a fullscreen Notepad text editor. This can be especially annoying when one has a 31" monitor -- it's like having a giant 31" lightbulb shining into one's eyes. However, I still don't see any evidence that the text color of #000000 causes eye strain. HN'rs... try this: go to "sarahwerner.net" (the webpage of this thread) In Google Chrome press F12 for Inspector Right-click on one of the grey paragraphs and select "Inspect element" In the "Styles" tab, press "+" to add a new css rule The new rule is "p { color : black; }" In Chrome, it lets you use your mouse to click a checkbox to dynamically toggle that rule You should also see that the values properties pane to toggle from "rgb(68,68,68)" to "rgb(0,0,0)" (Modify those instructions for Firefox, Safari, etc.) (Here's an animated gif showing what the F12 experiment looks like: http://i.imgur.com/mmfKIjW.gif http://i.imgur.com/mmfKIjW.gif Keep in mind that GIF demo is 8-bit color not 24-bit so you must do the experiment yourself to get an accurate comparison.) Experiment with toggling back & forth and see if you suffer the "eye strain" when it flips to #000000 that some folks are talking about. Personally, I think #000000 looks more readable because even though the sarahwerner.net's background is #FFFFFF (pure white), it doesn't "feel" like pure white because she has large elements on webpage such as photos and screenshots. My guess is that the eye "averages" out the entire background to be a "light grey" even though the underlying RGB value is pure white.

sgk284 11y ago

Contrast tends to be a balance. #000 on #FFF (or vice-versa) rarely ever occurs in nature. It also tends to strain eyes. Optimal contrast for most people tends to involve a dark grey, as seen on her website. The easiest design trick to make a website more reader friendly is to move a black font to a grey font. (Obviously there are exceptions and personal preference involved, such as yours)

lucianmarin 11y ago
There’s no display with infinite contrast. #000 and #FFF are some sort of gray on any display. If you lower the display brightness to save battery life, high contrast is the only thing that works OK.
jasode 11y ago
>#000 on #FFF (or vice-versa) rarely ever occurs in nature. It also tends to strain eyes. Optimal contrast for most people tends to involve a dark grey, Is there actual scientific research that supports this? Most printed books have dark black ink instead of grey ink. (Although the paper of the pages may not be #FFF white but an off white.) In the office, the laser printers lay down dark black toner on crisp white paper. The paper brightness can be ISO 98 or even ISO 102 and the black toner is extremely comfortable to read. If your statement was true, I would think there would be a massive demand for dark grey toner printed on light grey paper because it is "less strain on the eyes." The evolution of Amazon Kindles are also moving towards better contrast. Early models were dark grey e-ink on light grey background. The latest models are getting closer to the ideal of black text on white background and the customer reviews support that improvement. A comparison datapoint: Using F12 inspector, I notice that sarahwerner.net paragraphs uses rgb(68,68,68) while HN posts' text use rgb(0,0,0). I think most of would find HN text to be more comfortable to read.
- Keyframe 11y ago
  Is there actual scientific research that supports this? I don't know about OP, but in painting and in video/film art pure black and white are encouraged to be avoided. There they are called superblack and superwhite. In paintings it's because there is rarely (or not at all) such color in nature and in video (same for painting) also because it used to degrade signal for some reason in analogue era (strong yellow was avoided as well).
- sp332 11y ago
  But HN has a shaded background, which still reduces the contrast.
  - jasode 11y ago
    If the non-white background is an offsetting factor, why isn't the fact that #000 is actually realized on LCD/LED monitors as "dark grey" also an offsetting factor to reduce contrast? Apparently, it looks like there's a difference of opinions (rather than scientific rigor) whether the "dark grey" of #000 is "light enough". I'm fine with it ultimately boiling down to subjective aesthetics but sgk284's post made it sound like #000 eyestrain was scientific fact.
- DanBC 11y ago
  White paper doesn't have glare, unlike some monitors.
- vsync 11y ago
  Paper doesn't shine into your eyes. We also try to avoid staring into the sun, for the same reason.
  - mrob 11y ago
    What objectively measurable difference is there between reflected and transmitted light? Polarization might be different, but that's something that's only barely perceptible to humans. I don't think it's plausible that it could affect legibility or eye strain. ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haidinger%27s_brush https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haidinger%27s_brush )
DanBC 11y ago
I agree with you, but her website is hard to read for some people. If people are going to tweak contrast they should have dark text on an off-white background, rather than strog white background and mid-grey text.
marssaxman 11y ago
If my screen is too bright, I'll turn it down. I'd strongly prefer that designers not try to make the decision for me, when there is no possible way they can have more information about my reading environment than I do.

exodust 11y ago

As someone mentioned, black text on a glowing white LED background is unnatural. Our eyes are not subjected to that anywhere else in life. "Eye strain" might be overly dramatic, but certainly fatigue will happen earlier in bright contrasty reading conditions. Designers often want pure white backgrounds though, they love their white backgrounds! So the only improvement possible is to increase the text from #000 to something like #222. This does not mean the text won't look black anymore, it simply takes the edge off but still looks black. Obviously the lady's blog she wanted grey so she went with #444. Ideally though pure white background should be avoided if there's pages and pages of text to read. "Paper white" is what e-readers aim for. Thank God the Kindle app for tablets allows background colours to be reduced. I like the "newspaper white" tone, with a touch of sepia thrown in. Perfect! #FFF text on #000 background is the worst. Many designers I've worked with over the years agree. Paragraphs of text will "shimmer" due to the extreme contrast. If there's a lot of text on the page, never have it #fff on #000. Bring the white down a notch and/or the black up a notch. It will still look like white on black but just look softer and better.

jasode 11y ago
>Ideally though pure white background should be avoided I can buy into eye fatigue from the background being mostly arctic white (#FFFFFF) such as a fullscreen Notepad text editor. This can be especially annoying when one has a 31" monitor -- it's like having a giant 31" lightbulb shining into one's eyes. However, I still don't see any evidence that the text color of #000000 causes eye strain. HN'rs... try this: go to "sarahwerner.net" (the webpage of this thread) In Google Chrome press F12 for Inspector Right-click on one of the grey paragraphs and select "Inspect element" In the "Styles" tab, press "+" to add a new css rule The new rule is "p { color : black; }" In Chrome, it lets you use your mouse to click a checkbox to dynamically toggle that rule You should also see that the values properties pane to toggle from "rgb(68,68,68)" to "rgb(0,0,0)" (Modify those instructions for Firefox, Safari, etc.) (Here's an animated gif showing what the F12 experiment looks like: http://i.imgur.com/mmfKIjW.gif http://i.imgur.com/mmfKIjW.gif Keep in mind that GIF demo is 8-bit color not 24-bit so you must do the experiment yourself to get an accurate comparison.) Experiment with toggling back & forth and see if you suffer the "eye strain" when it flips to #000000 that some folks are talking about. Personally, I think #000000 looks more readable because even though the sarahwerner.net's background is #FFFFFF (pure white), it doesn't "feel" like pure white because she has large elements on webpage such as photos and screenshots. My guess is that the eye "averages" out the entire background to be a "light grey" even though the underlying RGB value is pure white.