I agree that this maybe be being taken to far. There's a time and a place
for low-contrast smaller text, but certainly there are limits as well. It's
mostly valuable for short labels containing non-critical information and
the value it offers is, as Pau mentioned, communicating the difference of
importance and priority of information on a page. Certainly the examples on
the contrastreblion site are bad, but I don't think we were ever
considering making the text content of our pages #CCCCCC.

I think the simple answer is "you better have a really good reason if you
are using really light text on pure white". Probably best to limit it to
#555 or so.

- Trevor


On Sun, Nov 10, 2013 at 11:07 AM, Isarra Yos <[email protected]> wrote:

>  On 10/11/13 10:01, Pau Giner wrote:
>
>  I think that both extremes have negative consequences.
>
>  Contrast is a tool for making more/less prominent what it is more/less
> important. If you make everything high contrast, or use a very similar grey
> palette for all text it becomes hard to communicate what it is more
> important and help users to perceive the visual hierarchy. Thus, the
> perceived complexity is increased.
>
>
>  they also make controversial choices like pure white text on a pure
>> black background
>
> Agree. Another interesting link on why to avoid pure black:
> http://ianstormtaylor.com/design-tip-never-use-black/
>
>
> Amusingly, the text there is too light to be comfortably read, at least on
> my screen.
>
> Really, though, it strikes me as a case of taking a thing too far. You do
> need to be careful when to use black, but there are also some pretty clear
> times when it is appropriate, and it comes down to the same principle of
> context as anything else, or any other colour.
> With painting, shadows are a particularly strange example. They're almost
> never black unless the objects in shadow are black, sure, but thinking in
> terms of shadow colour instead of the colours of the things in shadow
> doesn't make sense for precisely that reason. All objects have their own
> colours, but it's the bits in light that stand out - they're the
> significantly brighter versions of the object colours, or the tinted
> versions if it's a coloured light. We only use black shadows in more
> abstract design because... well, why do we?
> Because we don't have real light sources/colours? Because we can't think
> in raytracing terms with everything? Just imagine a future when all our 2D
> interfaces are rendered by raytracing so they have exactly precise
> lighting, even matching the external lighting conditions...
>
> More to the point, I do find it a bit odd that folks are so afraid of
> black on white just in principle. How harsh is it really, with a good
> renderer? For issues of eye strain and such, is that really because of the
> palette? Or do perhaps the antialiasing, font itself, or size and boldness
> of the text have as much to do with it?
>
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