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Contrast Rebellion

contrastrebellion.com

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Re: Contrast Rebellion

#71

Post by marcosdumay »

kentonv wrote: post #20

Weirdly, this site uses `color: #1b1b1b` instead of black. Why? The difference is barely noticeable, but black provides more contrast and IMO looks better than #1b1b1b. I've seen many designers assert that being slightly off-black is "better" for some reason, but isn't this the same argument that eventually leads to low-contrast designs? Why is a little bit of contrast reduction good, but a lot is bad? Pure black alw…

I'm not a designer, but personally I like to reserve the extreme colors for the rare occasions you need something "blacker than black" or the equivalent with your color.

Re: Contrast Rebellion

#72

Post by marcosdumay »

kdazzle wrote: post #22
kentonv wrote: post #20

Weirdly, this site uses `color: #1b1b1b` instead of black. Why? The difference is barely noticeable, but black provides more contrast and IMO looks better than #1b1b1b. I've seen many designers assert that being slightly off-black is "better" for some reason, but isn't this the same argument that eventually leads to low-contrast designs? Why is a little bit of contrast reduction good, but a lot is bad? Pure black alw…

First time I read an argument against all black in design was this 2012 article. Something about it not being a color found in nature. Then, yeah, some people seemed to interpret it as “use gray on gray”. https://ianstormtaylor.com/design-tip-never-use-black/

That is a very old lesson, for painting.

A few things are truly black, because you don't get to see their color. But "nothing" has actually the color black.

Anyway, even for painting, the fact that they have a paint for it means it happens on nature. It's just very rare, so everybody has to learn the lesson that no, you don't use black paint for that black thing you are seeing.

For computer interfaces the entire thing is obviously bullshit since the beginning. But well, our area has a thing for accepting obvious bullshit.

Re: Contrast Rebellion

#73

Post by crazygringo »

NikolaNovak wrote: post #46

I'm always amused by HackerNews being presented as this awful, unreadable, low-contrast atrocity, when it is the most user-friendly, easiest-to-read, most seamlessly customizable thing I access on literally any given day. That being said, yes; awful low-contrast sites exist. But it's not, hah, black and white. There's certainly such a thing as too high of a contrast - depending on the person, monitor, and background…

Normal comment text on HN is fine, but the title and description text on a post page is absolutely awful low-contrast.

It's medium gray on light gray. It's #828282 against #F6F6EF, a contrast ratio of 3.54:1 which is a fail. WCAG 2.0 level AA requires at least 4.5:1 for normal text. This isn't subjective or aesthetics, it's an objective measurement.

It's genuinely uncomfortable to read when it's a long "Tell HN" or similar.

> There's certainly such a thing as too high of a contrast

Not really, as long as you can adjust your screen brightness. That's what screen brightness is for. You can always decrease contrast that's too high, but you can't increase it much if it starts too low.

Re: Contrast Rebellion

#74

Post by AtlasBarfed »

Ok, this is much better than pointless fashion font BS.

Notice how the washed out look mirrors interior wall grey-on-white that dominates everywhere.

It is funny that the #1 enlightening story of 2023 so far for me is the study that "color is disappearing from the world".

I can kind of see it in this site. Color is an opinion. White/grey is a lack of opinion. Black fonts are YELLING AT PEOPLE. Grey-on-grey is surreptitious quiet propaganda.

There it is: the draining of color from the world is about making compliant people more compliant. Forget color studies to make people happier. We've moved past such things, and the new dominant color scheme is designed to avoid making people thing and keep them compliant and susceptible to the flood of propaganda in the world.

I am now amazed that this semi-pointless site has awoken a new conspiracy theory in my aging brain. Kudos!

Re: Contrast Rebellion

#75

Post by fafzv »

Kwpolska wrote: post #49
NikolaNovak wrote: post #46

I'm always amused by HackerNews being presented as this awful, unreadable, low-contrast atrocity, when it is the most user-friendly, easiest-to-read, most seamlessly customizable thing I access on literally any given day. That being said, yes; awful low-contrast sites exist. But it's not, hah, black and white. There's certainly such a thing as too high of a contrast - depending on the person, monitor, and background…

The default font size on HN is unreadable, and has issues with contrast, especially with downvoted or text posts.

[dead]

Re: Contrast Rebellion

#76

Post by UncleMeat »

NikolaNovak wrote: post #46

I'm always amused by HackerNews being presented as this awful, unreadable, low-contrast atrocity, when it is the most user-friendly, easiest-to-read, most seamlessly customizable thing I access on literally any given day. That being said, yes; awful low-contrast sites exist. But it's not, hah, black and white. There's certainly such a thing as too high of a contrast - depending on the person, monitor, and background…

Hackernews has tiny up and down arrows and minimal contrast on downvoted comments. A pain to use on mobile.

Re: Contrast Rebellion

#77

Post by AtlasBarfed »

mkidd wrote: post #42

This is a huge pet peeve for me. Shouldn't this be a “solved” style problem in 2023! I'd gladly fire every tenth web designer responsible for this problem regardless of their other merits. Small fonts are one thing. There are browser hot keys to change the font size. And I'm a huge fan of the "Zoom Text Only" option in Firefox where the rest of page doesn't go flying off the edge of my viewing area. But low contrast…

Angry old man take: people that do HTML are young people that don't mind doing fairly complex technical work for peanuts, because they can get visual satisfaction more quickly.

"Design" is something that is after a one or two trick pony. It is intended to disrupt known patterns (often loaded with decades of collected wisdom, sometimes legitimately backward).

Since the UI footsoldiers are all underpaid interns being churned on a yearly basis, collected wisdom won't be transferred unless it was provided in education.

It's not just HTML. There's a reason the same IT mistakes occur over and over and over. IT ages out all the people that achieve "wisdom". They either move above the point where "progress and wise refinement" would occur into the world of enterprise visio diagram engineering, or out of the industry period.

Now get off my lawn.

Re: Contrast Rebellion

#78

Post by Tao3300 »

kentonv wrote: post #20

Weirdly, this site uses `color: #1b1b1b` instead of black. Why? The difference is barely noticeable, but black provides more contrast and IMO looks better than #1b1b1b. I've seen many designers assert that being slightly off-black is "better" for some reason, but isn't this the same argument that eventually leads to low-contrast designs? Why is a little bit of contrast reduction good, but a lot is bad? Pure black alw…

It's a holdover from color printing processes. Rich Black (100% K over another color) and Registration Black (full everything) can look bad or even damage the paper.

It's like design's equivalent of not ending sentences with prepositions.

Re: Contrast Rebellion

#79

Post by blep-arsh »

usernew wrote: post #66
doodlesdev wrote: post #2

It would be nice since they are advocating for readable text if the font sizes were appropriate on mobile. Even funnier is that lighthouse shows a multitude of accessibility problems in the page including.... low contrast. https://pagespeed.web.dev/analysis/https-contrastrebellion-c... Apparently the reason for the awful sizing on mobile is missing the responsive viewport meta tag... IDK, I agree with the content of…

Well, the reason it shows "low contrast" on the page, is because the purpose of the page is to illustrate the low contrast problem. There are many sections that show the contrasting example of good contrast. What you're doing is running two virus scanners, and the second one finds the quarantine folder of the first one. You then claim the first antivirus is a virus. Nope. This was not a website designed for mobile -…

To quote the website, "designers need to think of reading on tiny screens"

Re: Contrast Rebellion

#80

Post by carlosjobim »

mkidd wrote: post #42

This is a huge pet peeve for me. Shouldn't this be a “solved” style problem in 2023! I'd gladly fire every tenth web designer responsible for this problem regardless of their other merits. Small fonts are one thing. There are browser hot keys to change the font size. And I'm a huge fan of the "Zoom Text Only" option in Firefox where the rest of page doesn't go flying off the edge of my viewing area. But low contrast…

>What are my options?

Set your browser to open every website in reader mode by default. It takes one week to get used to and then you will never want to go back. You can without hassle add exceptions for those websites that are not good in reader mode. This solution works great on desktop and mobile.

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