Can we also make an extension for simulating bad eyesight that everyone who makes websites with thin gray text would be forced to install?
Change the colour of grey text back to black on website using poor contrast text
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Re: Change the colour of grey text back to black on website using poor contrast text
#22Anybody has some extension to change colors when background is black and text is white? I don't know if this is common or not, but I just cannot look at that for more than a few seconds, my eyes burn. I never found an extension for Chrome that fixed this.
Re: Change the colour of grey text back to black on website using poor contrast text
#23Earlier quoted context omitted.
There's a difference between using "soft black" and using low-contrast gray like you're Apple in the 2010s. The thing about pure black isn't that it's unnatural, but that when paired with white its contrast can actually be uncomfortable and less accessible than a slightly toned down color combination (especially on full brightness).
> The thing about pure black isn't that it's unnatural, but that when paired with white its contrast can actually be uncomfortable and less accessible than a slightly toned down color combination (especially on full brightness). Can you find a citation for that statement? WCAG 2.1[0] mentions minimum contrast, but not maximum. The success criterion page itself is written in #000 on #fff. :) https://www.w3.org/WAI/WCA…
I don't have a citation, but a personal anecdote: When I was in charge for a website, an elderly woman contacted us and asked, if we could change the black text to a dark grey. She mentioned that the contest was too high, resulting for her in seeing ghost images of the letters. I changed the text color from black to something like #eee or #ddd (at least a change barely noticeable) and she later contacted us to to thank us, so it must have had an effect on her. So it seems, for some people with limited eyesight, contrast can be too high as well.
However, I agree with the generell sentiment that in modern web design, contrast is often too low.
Re: Change the colour of grey text back to black on website using poor contrast text
#24Earlier quoted context omitted.
I find there's often a high degree of educated comments here on HN. But, when it comes to monitors, readability and the physics of light something happens. #000 on #fff won't burn out your retinas. :)
There's a difference between using "soft black" and using low-contrast gray like you're Apple in the 2010s. The thing about pure black isn't that it's unnatural, but that when paired with white its contrast can actually be uncomfortable and less accessible than a slightly toned down color combination (especially on full brightness).
https://ethanschoonover.com/solarized/
Has some interesting - scientific based - design choices regarding how to handle contrast…
Re: Change the colour of grey text back to black on website using poor contrast text
#25[deleted]
Re: Change the colour of grey text back to black on website using poor contrast text
#26I love the “nothing in nature is true black so don’t use #000000” argument. Correct, nothing is, and your #000000 won’t be either once it’s shown on a physical screen.
On one of my old phones (Samsung S4), the display would treat pure black differently to dark grey. Pure black would smear across the display when scrolling, a kind of ghosting effect. Probably some effect of the pixels being turned fully off.
Dark greys didn't have this effect.
I suspect a lot of these "dark grey text" conventions may be related to this hardware issue.
Re: Change the colour of grey text back to black on website using poor contrast text
#27Some times less is more, when it comes to things like contrast.
Meta-irony at its finest.
Re: Change the colour of grey text back to black on website using poor contrast text
#28Can we also make an extension for simulating bad eyesight that everyone who makes websites with thin gray text would be forced to install?
In Chrome with DevTools open you can hit CTRL + SHIFT + P to open command menu and run "emulate blurred vision". It's not enforced though :)
Re: Change the colour of grey text back to black on website using poor contrast text
#29Can we also make an extension for simulating bad eyesight that everyone who makes websites with thin gray text would be forced to install?
Those already exist. You can simulate things like color blindness, tunnel vision, low contrast vision, and blurred vision, among other effects.
Re: Change the colour of grey text back to black on website using poor contrast text
#30Some times less is more, when it comes to things like contrast.
Meta-irony at its finest.
What contrast do you want? A billion to one? At some point it's excessive, right? So there's some value less than infinite that you're after. Why is your monitor's maximum contrast the right value?