Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Contrast Rebellion

contrastrebellion.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

81–90 of 151 posts

Re: Contrast Rebellion

#81

Post by ZoomZoomZoom »

chrismorgan wrote: post #62
ZoomZoomZoom wrote: post #19

For paper you'd like the maximum contrast, but screens emit light, and maximum contrast puts additional strain on the eyes. There's a big but, though. This is for people with normal eyesight. As far as I understand, some people require this hurtful (to me) level of contrast just to be able to read. Additionally, you can significantly lower contrast just adjusting your monitor's brightness, but there's a limit on how…

> but screens emit light, and maximum contrast puts additional strain on the eyes Depends on the screen. You don’t know if the viewer is using e-ink or something like that (or even printing to paper—though in that case especially, colours specified in your stylesheet are more likely to be just ignored). If they’re using an LCD or similar, you also have no idea about their brightness settings. They might be ridiculous…

Well it's just a problem of finding the baseline.

I tend to think the "sensible" setting for the hardware is to afford the maximum dynamic range. This way no loss occurs if the material requires it, but if not, it needs to be limited it in software. This, of course, would lead to "ridiculously overbright" text, and limited contrast solves this problem more or less completely (this is why I override the background colour for my PDF viewer). My opinion is influenced by working with graphics, though.

I also believe the most common display technology used for desktops should be this baseline, and currently it's LCD.

However, this creates problems for people with different hardware and different eyesight and light sensitivity. Perhaps it's the OS that should provide some tooling to display the colours differently for different displays and different modes (image/text/other). The changes must be informed by the software, so for example, you could mark you site's colourscheme as "for reading" and the dynamic range would adapt properly.

The way the OS adapts that I saw is atrocious, perhaps because optimized for a different metric. My laptop changing the display brightness and contrast when I use Windows on battery looks bad regardless of what's on display.

Re: Contrast Rebellion

#82

Post by MrJohz »

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 -…

I do a lot of web development, and a lot of that is stuff designed for desktops. I do my best to make sure it works as well as can be expected on mobile devices as well, but I completely agree that it does make things more complicated, and that often you do need a different design, or at least a very flexible design.

But this is not a complicated web application, this is a web document. If they had just added the right meta tags, it would have probably been enough. I'd be surprised if you really even need media queries for a page like this, just judicious use of `rem` and `%`. It's also very easy to test - just make your browser window thinner. Or open devtools on the side, and drag it around a bit. Or there's even a button in most browsers' devtools where it'll show the page in different common mobile and desktop sizes. I think lighthouse usually defaults to mobile too. (Not that lighthouse is necessarily all that valuable of a metric, but it's there, it's a couple of clicks away.)

The point the website is making is that accessibility is important. Light text on a light background might be aesthetically pleasing, but it's difficult to read for many people, and as developers and designers, we have a duty to make our work accessible. I fully agree. But mobile users - and especially mobile-only users - are also an important demographic, and deserve accessibility considerations as well.

Especially when those accessibility considerations would take at most half an hour of work.

Re: Contrast Rebellion

#83

Post by hiccuphippo »

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 size and spacing of the links and buttons could be bigger on mobile though.

Re: Contrast Rebellion

#85

Post by avodonosov »

This site was a response to a very annoying practice in fashion during these years - people were writing full articles and websites in light grey font color.

My complains back then: http://avodonosov.blogspot.com/2014/12/web-design-advice.htm...

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8776744

Today I don't see this practiced. Strange to see the contrastrebellion on top of HN.

Re: Contrast Rebellion

#87

Post by masswerk »

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…

If you follow the site of the day (SOTD) link, it says, "Site of the Day - Aug 3, 2011". (Nearly 12 years ago.)

Re: Contrast Rebellion

#88

Post by masswerk »

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/

Mind that the site in question is from 2011 (compare the site-of-the-day link). So this is a reaction to trends even prior to this.

Re: Contrast Rebellion

#89

Post by zagrebian »

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…

Try reading HN on an entry-level laptop with a crappy LCD display outdoors on a sunny day.

Re: Contrast Rebellion

#90

Post by zsz »

MrJohz wrote: post #82
usernew wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 -…

I do a lot of web development, and a lot of that is stuff designed for desktops. I do my best to make sure it works as well as can be expected on mobile devices as well, but I completely agree that it does make things more complicated, and that often you do need a different design, or at least a very flexible design. But this is not a complicated web application, this is a web document. If they had just added the rig…

It's not a matter of "deserve" and "right to." What use is having a site, that places an artificial hurdle for no acceptable reason? What use is having visitors rage-close the tab they opened for one's website, in contempt and disgust?

Websites, for the most part, aren't composed and administered by government agencies, to provide beneficial information or services paid for by taxes (and it is instructive that federal agencies have been section 508 (of the Rehabilitation Act) compliant for decades, precisely because they are taxpayer funded and therefore have an obligation to make information and services accessible).

So why shoot themselves in the foot, from the get-go? It's not my right that you make your site readable to me. But if you want me to be a repeat visitor, then why make it a difficult and frustrating experience for me? Any person who produces such a site has misplaced priorities.

Post reply on HN