Readability - CD/web site

[Cassandra Greer]

May I add my own (anecdotal) two euro cents:

Oh the headaches I had in the days when I had to use monitors that were
green/white text on a black background! I need light (ask my husband -'Turn
on the lights, dang it!' and have even resorted to bringing a lamp when
working on site. Give me black  text (at least 12 pt for my 1024x769 px
screen) on a white (or very light) background anyday! I prefer serif fonts
(e.g., palatino is my favorite :) but am not a stickler about it.

Cass the blind (who only stays on a dark site if she absolutely has to but
runs away as soon as possible)

> 
> I know the studies that I, myself, have done.  Personally, I have
> difficulty reading anything at all on a dark background.  It
> is somehow artistic, I imagine, to use black on dark brown, or
> dark red on dark blue (or vice-versa).  My studies reveal that
> a dark background leads me into taking a particular set of actions:
> 
> 1. If the website is unimportant, I look elsewhere, or and go brush
>     the horses, or darn socks, or do some other pleasant activity.
> 
> 2. If it has truly necessary information, I try "select all" to
>     see if some sort of reversal improves legibility.  If that
>     fails I try copying the text and pasting it into Emacs or
>     some other editor. Perhaps instead I try opening the website
>     with lynx; or maybe I edit the HTML source, correcting the
>     colors, and save it onto my own machine so I can try reading
>     it as it should have appeared.
> 
> I wonder what actions others may take.  Do they curse sliently, or
> maybe throw shoes?  Do they involve anyone who'll listen in a
> rant about lousy web design?  Do they go and get drunk, or at
> least go raid the candy machine?
> 
> Dark red on dark blue generates a peculiarly high level of eyestrain,
> because the eye must try to focus on two wavelengths that differ by
> nearly half an octave.  Tiny type is harder than larger.  The efceft 
> cluod be made wsroe olny by jmulibg the lteters in all the wrdos.
> 
> The purpose of using the dark background eludes me.  Perhaps the
> webmaster desires power over the reader.  Perhaps he has a fondness
> for bathing-machines, which he constantly carries about, and
> believes that the add to the beauty of scenes, a sentiment open
> to doubt.
> 
> Nelson, Julie wrote:
> > My team is developing a marketing CD for our retail computer system.
> > We're in the initial stages of developing the layout for the main
> > navigation/home page.  So far, we've developed 2 different layouts.  One
> > has a white background, black text, navigation buttons with a red border
> > at the top, a few images & the very top of the page has the company &
> > computer system logos with a  black background behind it.  The other
> > layout has a black background, white text, the same company & computer
> > system logos with a black background & a few images.  It might just be
> > my eyesight, but it's more challenging for me to read the white text on
> > a black background than black text on a white background (or maybe this
> > is just what my eyes are used to).  
> > 
> > Do you know of any readability studies available on the web that
> > reference what background color/font color/font size & type is easiest
> > to read on a CD or web site.  Our long term goal is to include a good
> > deal of this content on our intranet site, so it would be helpful if the
> > CD & web site had a similar layout.  I'm researching this on Google, but
> > I thought I'd check here too.  I'm guessing I could find something on
> > Jakob Nielsen's site.
> 

-- 
Cassandra Greer
Technical Translation and Documentation
Spilhofstr. 16
81927 München
+49 (089) 94004794
cassandra (at) greer.de
cassandragreer (at) mac.com