There has been an on ongoing feud in User Interfaces, whether light text on a dark background is better than dark text on a light background. Dark or black backgrounds are often being associated with sexiness and gloss, and white backgrounds being clean but generic. Both (obviously) have their merits and uses, but the concern surrounds whether or not one is more physically straining than the other. the results of one colour and readability survey had this to say:
” The most readable color combination is black text on white background; overall, there is a stronger preference for any combination containing black. The two least readable combinations were red on green and fuchsia on blue. White on blue and red on yellow were ranked fairly high, while green on yellow and white on fuchsia were ranked fairly low. All others fell somewhere between these extremes. Also, in every color combination surveyed, the darker text on a lighter background was rated more readable than its inverse (e.g. blue text on white background ranked higher then white text on blue background).
colour survey
However even in the light of information like this people will still cling to the notion that “well… it just hurt’s my eyes”, which funnily enough is exactly the same rhetoric the opposing party uses.
A few observations on the personas behind this:
we ♥ dark backgrounds
Tends to do a lot of development / programming, works in dark rooms and late at night. Has ‘floaters’ in the eyes making white backgrounds distracting so turns down brightness on monitors. Has done much of the previous web work with white and pastels and is now thoroughly bored of it.
we ♥ dark text
Reads a lot of content online and tends to be interested in typography. Often sketches on paper when thinking ideas through. Has tried many colour varations and layouts but has finally conceded and gone for simplicity.
” 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).
documented on: 2006-08-22, by chrono13
Ok… so this is the typical kind of argument we are facing here. I can agree that staring at a word processor with the lights turned off is no fun. No-one should be working in an environment like that, this is part of the issue. As our dependency has grown on using monitors/screens in the work place, so has our awareness of adapting and integrating these technologies into our daily life with our limited physical constraints. Hence comfy multi-adjustable office chairs, mouse pads with jelly cushions, ergonomic keyboards, etc…those are all place holders until we figure things out.
The eye reacts in a similar way to those old CTR screens, lights can leave ‘burn marks’ or phosphorescent trails if you like. So, if you have a dark background with light text and you focus too long on one word this trail will follow your eye and overlay on top of the next word you are looking at, creating a blurry effect. In contrast the inverse will create the illusion that the text is thinner this is because the whole negative space of the page is the trail creating a more washed out effect. Try it out for yourself.
Visually impaired computer user will usually reconfigure settings to have white backgrounds and large bold black text. It is also interesting to note that astronomers often invert star-charts to analyse them.
Day & Night
Let’s forget about computers for a second. Think of primal man and how our brains have developed over thousands of years of conditioning. Hunting or looking through shrubbery throughout the day, bonfires,cooking and sleeping at night. Our eyes have gradually adjusted and developed under this regime. Colours and contrast levels have also had their impact on our mental associations inducing states of alertness,fatigue, or irritation. A few simple examples:
- movement will catch our attention
- we are attracted to points of light in the darkness
- we have better visual acuity in daytime conditions
This means that light characters on a dark back will compete for you eyes attention. As you focus on one, the other distracts you forcing you to focus slightly more or squint.
Not so fast
Another study delves further using algorithms to measure contrast difference. The inconclusive results suggests that text color does not matter but what matters is the contrast level:
” In order to assess whether the direction of the brightness difference (i.e. bright text on dim background vs. dim text on bright background) is of any importance in determining readability ratings, brightness difference was calculated as the difference between background and text brightness. In the case where the background was brighter than the text, this difference was found to be positive. For those images in which the text was brighter than the background, this difference was negative. The brightness difference was then plotted against the median rating, and yielded a ‘U-shaped’ plot, shown in Figure 6 (below). This plot suggests that the direction of the brightness difference does not appear to be of importance in determining overall readability ratings.
In the end
It seems to still be an open debate with opinions pretty much split down the middle. Whilst i agree that there will never be an accord as to which is more aesthetically pleasing, personally i think there is a good case for which is more beneficial to our biology. I would be very interested to hear of any new research that has been done in this field.
Anyway, what’s your opinion…
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Comments
Brett Widmann
on Jan 17, 2011, 12:55 AM
This is a really helpful article! Thanks for sharing!