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Black Background == Poor Readership, lost visitors

Regardless of the artistic merits of a black background, it has been known for years that white-on-black is very hard to read. Speed and comprehension drop dramatically, and the web site will lose visitors.

There's a reason why virtually ALL commercial web sites use a light-colored background with dark text. They're in it for the money, and they've done the usability studies. Dark backgrounds lose customers. The only exceptions are web sites where the graphical/artistic content outweighs the text, such as a "batman returns" site, or a photographer's site.

Atheist Nexus is not an artistic site; it's primary medium is text, and that text's readability should be maximized.

I hope this helps.
James

Tags: black, usability, web

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Permalink Reply by Chrys Stevenson on August 10, 2008 at 8:28pm

Ah! OK, I twiddled with the brightness and got it to go grey - but it makes the white awfully bright. But don't mind me, my eyes are shot anyway.

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Permalink Reply by The Nerd on August 10, 2008 at 9:15pm

One thing you could try is to reduce brightness and increase contrast. This should change the difference between the different shades, while not making it so harsh.

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Permalink Reply by Anath on August 11, 2008 at 2:15am

Maybe some of it does have to do with monitor. My screen is very high quality, and the background for me has never appeared "black", but a medium to dark grey. However I'm sure if I used my old computer it would be black due to a poor monitor.

I know its a personal thing, but I actually prefer and find light on dark easier to read. It does not fatigue my eyes (that I can tell) and it blends better with my computer color scheme than with white/black, which I actually find painful to look at for prolonged periods of time. I also am used to light on dark as nearly every forum I've ever belonged to (specifically in my "early 'net years") has been that way, as well as a lot of blogs I've written, read, and such.

I wonder if it would be possible to have options for the theme as we do with our personal pages... just have our personal settings apply globally? Other than that, perhaps we could just slowly adjust the shade of the grey until the statistics reach an optimal level and let it "decide itself" in a way?

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Permalink Reply by LeaT on September 20, 2008 at 3:59am

Always been grey to me to since I joined. I think it indeed has to do with the screens people are using. If you are running 100% on brightness, I am quite sure the color will become grey and would have been in the very beginning.

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Permalink Reply by The Nerd on September 29, 2008 at 11:57am

Hehe, I like how you say we need to be "bright". The Brights even have a logo which is on a black background, created by my very own man: http://the-brights.net/people/expressions.html :-P

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Permalink Reply by Brother Richard on September 29, 2008 at 1:21pm

Just to let everyone know, we are planning to switch to a much lighter background. Probably it will even be white. However, we are waiting to get our new logo design first.

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Permalink Reply by Фелч Гроган on November 15, 2008 at 12:34am

Fark. For environmental reasons, black is beautiful. Default white backgrounds = power waste.

I like black. I like the site the way it is.

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Permalink Reply by Tony "Hussein" Sidaway on November 15, 2008 at 3:59am

Power waste? Think again.

http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2007/08/is-black-new-green.html

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Permalink Reply by GDogg on November 15, 2008 at 12:01am

Who Says? I mean what is the source of information of black bg being difficult to read "known for years" the fact that more people do it isn't...oh wait a minute I just looked down at my keyboard after reading the screen and little words are swimming all over. I need to get a black keyboard right away!
G

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Permalink Reply by Tim on November 20, 2008 at 5:08pm

Dyslexics need soft pastal background, trust me on this.

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Permalink Reply by Paris Finley on December 9, 2008 at 6:57pm

Most sites today are put together with some type of CMS (content management system). Most of them permit STYLES to be open to user selection. I have put up many Drupal sites like that, and I've done one Cold Fusion site like that. How is this site constructed. Is that not a possibility?

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Permalink Reply by Фелч Гроган on December 9, 2008 at 7:40pm

I like white on black background, I actually find it easier to read, and (putting on enviro-cap) the cumulative global amount of power consumption (and associated emmissions) by default white backgrounds, though not calculated, must be staggering.