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Readers have reported that this story contains information that may not be accurate.165 Comments
- Pieman88, on 11/06/2007, -18/+211I find light-on-dark text to be much easier to read.
- chrono13, on 10/12/2007, -6/+118From The Best Page In The Universe FAQ: http://www.thebestpageintheuniverse.net/c.cgi?u=faq
"I use large fonts also as a protest against all the stylish garbage you see out there. When I go to a web site, I WANT TO READ THE CONTENT. Trust me, that micro-font everyone uses isn't nearly as original as they think.
I've chosen a black background for most of my text because it's easier on the eyes than staring at a white screen. Think about it: your monitor is not a piece of paper, no matter how hard you try to make it one. Staring at a white background while you read is like staring at a light bulb (don't believe me? Try turning off the lights next time you use a word processor)." - p5ych0, on 10/12/2007, -10/+115agreed, after looking at page after page of sites that are almost solid white, my eyes start to strain as it is like staring at a lightbulb
- digitaldivider, on 10/12/2007, -5/+69I like light text on a dark background. nothing like dark green text on a black terminal.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -3/+66So can we all agree that this guy is an idiot for thinking light on dark is bad on the eyes? Ok, good. Now let's mark this "lame" and move on.
- theblooms, on 10/12/2007, -6/+34Except for orange text on a black background!
- TheVetos, on 10/12/2007, -2/+27I prefer light text on dark background, its so much cleaner to read
- masamunecyrus, on 10/12/2007, -5/+30Light text on dark backgrounds is easier on the eyes than the traditional black text on white backgrounds. That is why the classic Windows Accessibility color scheme recolors Windows to have large light text on black backgrounds. Also, black text on white backgrounds is, contrary to what one might think, is very demanding on the eyes. That is why you'll sometimes notice that you have to re-read some sentences because you missed reading them the first time. It is this very reason why many colleges and schools choose to print black text on pastel-colored paper, such as light red, light green, and light blue. The pastel colors are easier on the eyes than plain white.
- armbar, on 10/12/2007, -12/+31Seriously. I usually agree with most things Roger says, but I really think light (specifically, pure white) is much easier to read on dark backgrounds, than the inverse. Even if he's right, blogs (and therefore, their designs) are aimed at a younger crowd, especially in the web design community, and their eyes haven't gone totally bad yet.
- WalterDirt, on 10/12/2007, -3/+21If you have a OS X use the shortcut Control+Option+Command+8 and the page will invert. Don't bury me cause I mentioned the word mac, I'm sure you windozers have a utility for the same functionality.
- kp3469, on 10/12/2007, -3/+21no, the link is to a site that has *dark* text on a *light* background. unless your mutant power is seeing everything in negative ...
- falstaff, on 10/12/2007, -1/+18I was told years ago that to minimize eye strain, the best combination is white text on a bark blue background.
I don't know anything about the 'physics' of why it's better, but it's certainly more comfortable. - merreborn, on 10/12/2007, -1/+15I'd have to agree. The PuTTY SSH client defaults to black text on grey, and I always change it to light grey on black. It's just so much easier to read.
- dclowd9901, on 10/12/2007, -1/+15I'm glad someone else said it first.
FTA:
"Note that I am not criticising the aesthetics of inverted designs, just their readability."
He never even argues the point that a bright white monitor is pretty rough on the eyes, and that a darker monitor might make an easier read.
It's true that printed text can be quite difficult to read inverted, but a lot of this has to do with DPI (dots per inch) and LPI (Lines per inch). You get significant distortion when printing at a smaller font size with lower LPI.
Newer monitors, however, allow features like anti-aliased fonts which recreate text with almost perfect accuracy.
Given that it's easier on eye strain, and that digital font recreation is so advanced, I'd say that, for readability, it's inverted all the way. Just make sure you don't make that font *too* bright. - Dhalgren, on 10/12/2007, -1/+15"The PuTTY SSH client defaults to black text on grey"
Umm, no it doesn't... - drizek, on 10/12/2007, -1/+13thats why i highlight text with my mouse before I read it.
- pumacub, on 10/12/2007, -0/+11I remember reading a study where they researched eye strain for black text on a white background and vise versa. The reverse (white text on black) had significantly less eye strain.
Personally, I like white text on a colored background (a deep color). - surgen, on 10/12/2007, -0/+11"I find light-on-dark text to be much easier to read."
Ditto, its easier on the eyes. - RyeBrye, on 10/12/2007, -0/+10The worst, of course, is Gray on Dark Gray. I've seen a handful of blogs like that.
- streak, on 10/12/2007, -2/+11There's good reason dark text on a light background tends to be easier to read, particularly as one gets older. For most people, it's harder to focus at close distances than infinity, and as eyes age it gets even harder (re: presbyopia). If text is displayed on a light background, though, the brightness of the background helps to close down the pupils to produce smaller apertures, which makes it easier to focus, much like how a pinhole camera works without a lens.
- bloobloo, on 10/12/2007, -1/+8But until screens run at print resolutions, serifs make reading on screen harder - there is only a small amount of space to use and serifs end up getting in the way.
- Stumpfarmer, on 10/12/2007, -2/+8I think his blog would read better with white text on a white background.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -3/+9for people on both sides of the aisle.. make a firefox book mark of the code below.. clicking on the bookmark will invert the colors on a website.. from white text on a black background to black text on a hite one and versus vice.
javascript:(function(){function RGBtoHSL(RGBColor){with(Math){var R,G,B;var cMax,cMin;var sum,diff;var Rdelta,Gdelta,Bdelta;var H,L,S;R=RGBColor[0];G=RGBColor[1];B=RGBColor[2];cMax=max(max(R,G),B);cMin=min(min(R,G),B);sum=cMax+cMin;diff=cMax-cMin;L=sum/2;if(cMax==cMin){S=0;H=0;}else{if(L - wistar, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6Word used to default to white on a blue background back in the ASCII days. Today you can set it it to be whatever you want.
- masamunecyrus, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5If I had to guess, and this is a rough guess, I would say that it is because the shades of blue are the hardest for the eyes to see (green is the easiest to see), and one would presume that to increase textual readability, you would have to decrease the visibility of the background. Perhaps, then, blue is a better choice than black because when you have white text on a black background, you may get halos around the text, whereas with blue, you get no halos.
- hackwrench, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5Speaking of readability, DIgg makes everything fit to the banner at the top. If you want to make text bigger everything reflows so that all three columns, (Topics to the left, content in middle, ads to right) still fit under the banner.
- Cander, on 10/12/2007, -2/+7Author may want to do some research next time into colour schemes vs. readability as most often light on dark is the most readable. Like yellow on blue.
- TheAttacks, on 10/12/2007, -1/+6No no, he's correct, sort of. There's a link at the top to switch from the original view of the site to a "light text-dark background" view.
- OBDriftwood, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4I like white text on a blue background with a hex stop code and some core dump information.
- streak, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4Try turning a light on in the room. This will help further close down your pupils, so it's easier to focus on the screen.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4digg doesnt like me posting javascript in comments...oh well
http://www.squarefree.com/bookmarklets/color.html
the 8th bookmarklet down.. lets you invert the colors on a webpage.. from dark text one light backgound to light text on a dark one
and versus vice.. so both sides can be happy. - sailor, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4I also don't mind dark backgrounds with light colored text...I just can't stand the tiny fonts that everyone is using these days. I admit my eyesight is not perfect but please use larger font sizes!...
- lampiaio, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4Newspapers don't emit light.
- plarp, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4it's fairly simple.. white is brighter the black.. a full screen of white causes your eye muscles strain to close your pupils to let in less light. you have a full screen of black your eyes don't have to strain to close your pupils.. the color of text has little effect on strain as your eyes are trying to focus the whole picture..
now the next question!
why aren't books printed that way if it it's less strain?
because it would cost an insane lot of money to do inverse printing - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4"55+ year-old"
That was jolting. I'm 36, and until now had reason to believe I was the oldest person ever to visit Digg. - Cander, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4To clarify more. Light backgrounds can drown out the smaller darker text.
- Thorpe, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3I find GameSpot a good example of light on dark.
- Nerys, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Depending on the text style and size even white text on black can be hard. I prefer off white sometimes IE just a tiny bit off from white so the letters dont smear or appear to bright.
Definately light text on dark background is preferred - pumacub, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4I dunno, both my parents perfer light text on a dark background and their eyesight is terrible.
- merckxCannibal, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Agreed, I love the trend away for google white. Google style is great here and there but the entire internet doesn't need to look that way. Personally I still code with a black background and light text.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3doh.. first sometimes the comment system here is buggy.. i could my comment above to show even with a refresh.. looking at my history suggested that i didnt even post a comment.. and yet i see it here now... but what i find extremely odd..
I shouldnt get dugg up as digg wouldnt let me post the entire code.. my code above shouldnt work.. I posted a bookmarklet link below.. just drag the appropriate bookmark to your bookmark toolbar.
but please digg down my comment above, as it gives the misimpression that it actually works. - n00854180t, on 10/12/2007, -2/+5I'll put in another vote for light text on a dark background being easier to read. Especially at various hours of the day or night. When waking up in the morning or trying to work at night, a white background makes dark text completely indistinguishable and unbearable.
- willcode4beer, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3its for the fnords of course
- streak, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Presbyopia
"Presbyopia, like other focus defects, becomes much less noticeable in bright sunlight. This is not the result of any mysterious 'healing effect' but just the consequence of the iris closing to a pinhole, so that depth of focus, regardless of actual ability to focus, is greatly enhanced, as in a pinhole camera which produces images without any lens at all. Another way of putting this is to say that the 'circle of confusion', or blurredness of image, is reduced, without improving focussing." - thekak, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Could not agree more. Thank you. His eyes seem over sensitive, maybe he's in a pitch black cave with brightness set to 10,000.
If the text is 100% white on 100% black then yes I agree, but people DO know how to do it correctly. - hypercube33, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3My friend pointed out to me that staring at a monitor with black [text] on white [background] is basically staring at a big flat white lightbulb with a mask in some areas. Sounds great for my eyes, and power bill right?
- Dracos, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3This is the internet, your website is not a perfect translation of your sales brochures. Having a website in color is no more expensive than having it black in white. Why? There's no ink to drive up the cost.
The web is not made of paper. Stop treating it that way.
Light text on a dark background is proven to be easier to read on screen, because a screen emits light, unlike paper which merely reflects it.
The real problems in curent web design trends are a) small fonts, and b) low contrast text/background color schemes. Even Digg is guilty of both of these.
#999 on #fff is not readable for main text (exponentially less readable as the font gets smaller). Save it for when you want to de-enphasize a piece of text. - obijohn, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3fixed link:
http://www.ilovejackdaniels.com/browsers/opera-user-mode-style-sheets/
Please people, stop putting URLs in parentheses. - bontaq, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Whenever my eyes get tired or it's night I almost always hit ctrl+alt+command+8 (Mac OS X hotkey for screen inversion). Though I have no facts to back it up, it certainly feels much easier on my tired eyes.
- neuros, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4agreed.
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