Skin Critique

[dude]

Jul 20, 2010 23:49:37 GMT -8 Tumbleweed said:

I disagree with the previous poster but whatever. Eye fatigue is important and having too much of a contrast, with some color combos, can cause problems. Black text on white doesn't have that vibration or ragged edges. White on black is horrible.

I put some examples up on my test site. If you look at samples 1, 3 & 4 notice how they almost stand out from the page? That is what cause eye fatigue. Especially #3.

Number two appears to meld into the background. It isn't "in your face" so to speak as much as the others.

The two darker colors are best of all but when you want a certain color, like a cyan for the aesthetic reasons you just have to try to find the best one.

I want to repeat what I said before. After looking at your site the color wasn't as bad as it seemed when my eyes were tired the night...well... early morning before.

Ultimately, it is up to you and what you like. I don't want to cause a debate here or anything. You have a pretty site and I think you did pretty nicely with much of it.

No that's not what causes eye fatigue. Straining to read text and having too many bright colours on a page are what causes eye strain. That's why those who spend their lives working with computers i.e. programmers/writers etc. tend to have a dark background colour and light text colour in their editor of choice. Melding into the background is poor interface design - that's one of the things that usually put me off these sorts of designs - the background colour is often too close to the text colour and I have to physically lean into the screen a bit just to read it. The contrast that makes it easy to read is the same contrast that causes the jagginess. Imo, good interface design should prioritise function over form. The text colour at the moment is ok as it is but personally I would lighten it up a little.

Overall your design is quite nice - I'm not a big fan of the black bar at the top and bottom - it doesn't seem to fit in with the rest of the theme. The header is ok but I think you've faded out the photo a bit too much for my liking - you've lost too much of the original colour. And again I'm finding the text a little hard to read which is a result of both the choice of font and colour. Everything else is good though - I'd just replace the bits where you've got black with a dark blue colour to fit in a little nicer.

[Tumbleweed]

Jul 21, 2010 6:35:24 GMT -8 dude said:

Jul 20, 2010 23:49:37 GMT -8 Tumbleweed said:

I disagree with the previous poster but whatever. Eye fatigue is important and having too much of a contrast, with some color combos, can cause problems. Black text on white doesn't have that vibration or ragged edges. White on black is horrible.

I put some examples up on my test site. If you look at samples 1, 3 & 4 notice how they almost stand out from the page? That is what cause eye fatigue. Especially #3.

Number two appears to meld into the background. It isn't "in your face" so to speak as much as the others.

The two darker colors are best of all but when you want a certain color, like a cyan for the aesthetic reasons you just have to try to find the best one.

I want to repeat what I said before. After looking at your site the color wasn't as bad as it seemed when my eyes were tired the night...well... early morning before.

Ultimately, it is up to you and what you like. I don't want to cause a debate here or anything. You have a pretty site and I think you did pretty nicely with much of it.

No that's not what causes eye fatigue. Straining to read text and having too many bright colours on a page are what causes eye strain. That's why those who spend their lives working with computers i.e. programmers/writers etc. tend to have a dark background colour and light text colour in their editor of choice. Melding into the background is poor interface design - that's one of the things that usually put me off these sorts of designs - the background colour is often too close to the text colour and I have to physically lean into the screen a bit just to read it. The contrast that makes it easy to read is the same contrast that causes the jagginess. Imo, good interface design should prioritise function over form. The text colour at the moment is ok as it is but personally I would lighten it up a little.

My last comments on this.

I will agree, Dude, on a few points you made.

1. You can use colors that are too close to the background color where it does become an eye strain. If you look at what the majority consider good web design (and there are a few that will argue the point) using pure white or near white on a dark background is bad. Most opt for gray on black or a midtone color for other dark background colors rather than the brightest/llightest they can find. They only use bright or white text minimally and for larger text, not tiny text, which is usually the text that holds the most content.

And the truth be told, most avoid dark backgrounds. Just look at Proboards, MSN, Yahoo, Google, New York Times, or any of the most read web sites. Yep, white/light backgrounds with dark text. Not a dark background to be found.

2. Bright colors do cause eye fatigue and bright text is no exception.

3. I agree function over form is most important.

O.K. Mods, I won't comment on this anymore and sorry Secretheart, you are probably totally confused by now so just go with what you think is best.

[dude]

Jul 21, 2010 9:02:43 GMT -8 Tumbleweed said:

Jul 21, 2010 6:35:24 GMT -8 dude said:

No that's not what causes eye fatigue. Straining to read text and having too many bright colours on a page are what causes eye strain. That's why those who spend their lives working with computers i.e. programmers/writers etc. tend to have a dark background colour and light text colour in their editor of choice. Melding into the background is poor interface design - that's one of the things that usually put me off these sorts of designs - the background colour is often too close to the text colour and I have to physically lean into the screen a bit just to read it. The contrast that makes it easy to read is the same contrast that causes the jagginess. Imo, good interface design should prioritise function over form. The text colour at the moment is ok as it is but personally I would lighten it up a little.

My last comments on this.

I will agree, Dude, on a few points you made.

1. You can use colors that are too close to the background color where it does become an eye strain. If you look at what the majority consider good web design (and there are a few that will argue the point) using pure white or near white on a dark background is bad. Most opt for gray on black or a midtone color for other dark background colors rather than the brightest/llightest they can find. They only use bright or white text minimally and for larger text, not tiny text, which is usually the text that holds the most content.

And the truth be told, most avoid dark backgrounds. Just look at Proboards, MSN, Yahoo, Google, New York Times, or any of the most read web sites. Yep, white/light backgrounds with dark text. Not a dark background to be found.

2. Bright colors do cause eye fatigue and bright text is no exception.

3. I agree function over form is most important.

O.K. Mods, I won't comment on this anymore and sorry Secretheart, you are probably totally confused by now so just go with what you think is best.

1. I've got no idea who this majority is because I've never seen a good user interface designer choose a text colour that's sufficiently close to the background colour that it's as good as unreadable. To put some actual numbers into this you suggested a colour which had 65% brightness on a background colour which had 30% brightness in your first example. In your second example you'd changed to a colour which had 58% brightness on the same background. That's a difference of 35% and 28%. By contrast with what you were saying above about using mid-grey on a black background which would be a 50% difference. You also suggested black on a dark background colour which would be equally poor. I'm not saying that you should always choose either 0% or 100% brightness but that choosing colours which were quite as close together as those you suggested would make it very hard for some people to read and would make it more difficult for everyone to read. As I said earlier it's about striking a balance between function and form where function is the primary consideration.

The argument about people avoiding dark backgrounds altogether is completely irrelevant for a start - we're talking specifically about what the best text colour is for a dark background not what background colour is best. The reasons for the choice of a light background are completely unrelated to eye strain - a bright appearance is more eye-catching and is more like what we're used to seeing in other forms of media. As I mentioned earlier I personally use dark background colours and light foreground colours for programming/writing applications where you could be staring at the screen for a long period of time and I also use a dark theme here on pbs. I also know that is the case for most programmers (although I certainly wouldn't go as far as to place myself under that label).

2. Yes it is the bright colours that cause the eye fatigue but a complete page of bright colours i.e. a bright background cause more fatigue than just having bright text.

3. I'm glad :>

[Keaton]

That's nice.. I'll never have mine look so good :'c

[Danie]

thanks