> > I've found I much prefer dark backgrounds to light ones, but > perhaps I have > somewhat sensitive eyes. I have read that white on black can > be hard on the > eyes, but I did make my text a gray tone to make it less > contrasty, and I > think that helps a lot. ffffff on 000000 is really hard to > look at, I > agree. >
You may be an exception, of course (or a natural-born Death Metal Goth), but most people find black text on white background most legible - meaning basically that they are more likely to read to the end of the text, and to remember and understand more of what they have read. A good source of information about legibility in print is a short book available on the web called 'Are you communicating or just making pretty shapes?'. It's worth reading and the results are based on statistical analysis of readers' reactions to different typography and layout. By and large the results seem to transfer across to the web. > There are two main reasons I chose black as my background color: > > 1. Photos tend to look better on a dark background when shown on the > internet (IMHO). There's less glare around the image to > screw with the > apparent presentation of the photo. I also picked gray tones > for my text > and links to reduce glare. Photos often look very different > (to my eyes) > between my dark website and my bright livejournal, which has a white > background. > Neither black nor white is a good choice as a background for pictures. I did a bit of research around this a few years ago when I put together my first web site. The best choice is a medium grey, which is also used as a non-web standard for picture viewing conditions. I can't find the references to back this up, unfortunately. It tends to make photo sites look a bit samey, but there is a good Darwinian reason for so many professional sites having a similar look! Regards Bob -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List [email protected] http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
