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User Motivation Determines the Best Color Scheme for Your Website

kaikkonendesign.fi

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Re: User Motivation Determines the Best Color Scheme for Your Website

#11

Post by yuchi »

cool-RR wrote: post #6

It makes me incredibly sad that people are willing to stare straight ahead at a fucking lightbulb (a.k.a. sites with a white background) and destroy their vision.

There's a lot to discuss here. I personally cannot read through light-on-dark digital designs. After a few lines everything blurs. With dark-on-light on the opposite I can read for hours.

Most probably is due to a non-optimal screen both at home and work-place, but I suffer from the same issue even on 2010 iMacs.

But the most pleasant scheme for me (I mean, my eyes) is light-gray-on-dark-gray.

Re: User Motivation Determines the Best Color Scheme for Your Website

#13

Post by DustinCalim »

I don't agree with Hedonism being the driving force behind dark websites. I prefer dark(and spend all day coding with a dark background) because it's easier on my eyes... The idea behind skeuomorphism in webpages mimicking paper has proven itself when the print industry attempted to carry their print practices over to the web and failed. The internet is still very young; I think what we will find over time as more and more people spend more and more time on computers is a departure from paperesque websites to a more functional design that is dark and physiologically friendly(easy on your eyes).

Interestingly enough, the website in the link looks awesome using the Hacker Vision Chrome extension I use which is designed to do just that - it applies a dark theme to all websites so the bright white backgrounds don't destroy your eyes.

Download Hacker Vision at: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/hacker-vision/fomm...

Re: User Motivation Determines the Best Color Scheme for Your Website

#14

Post by carbocation »

cool-RR wrote: post #6

It makes me incredibly sad that people are willing to stare straight ahead at a fucking lightbulb (a.k.a. sites with a white background) and destroy their vision.

I do not think there is actually evidence that white instead of grey backgrounds "destroy" your vision.

Re: User Motivation Determines the Best Color Scheme for Your Website

#16

Post by Frozenlock »

cool-RR wrote: post #6

It makes me incredibly sad that people are willing to stare straight ahead at a fucking lightbulb (a.k.a. sites with a white background) and destroy their vision.

I agree. "Why the Web is White" Because it's designed by people who are not using the websites. It's easier to 'sell'.

Same reason AutoCAD is shown with a white background in publicity, but users switch to a dark background the instant they have to use it professionally.

Same thing with a text editor... Emacs default to white, but the first thing I do with a fresh install is to change it to a dark theme.

Re: User Motivation Determines the Best Color Scheme for Your Website

#17

Post by iota »

The fight against "default" white seems analogous to Ian Storm Taylor's recommendation to never use black (http://ianstormtaylor.com/design-tip-never-use-black/). I prefer off white (e.g., #f9fafc) because of the same reason I like text color set at #333 — it looks softer, but still almost imperceptibly different from #fff/#000's traditional "paper and ink" aesthetic.

http://www.colorcodehex.com/f9fafc/

http://www.colorcodehex.com/333333/

Re: User Motivation Determines the Best Color Scheme for Your Website

#18

Post by Frozenlock »

DustinCalim wrote: post #13

I don't agree with Hedonism being the driving force behind dark websites. I prefer dark(and spend all day coding with a dark background) because it's easier on my eyes... The idea behind skeuomorphism in webpages mimicking paper has proven itself when the print industry attempted to carry their print practices over to the web and failed. The internet is still very young; I think what we will find over time as more an…

Works better than other alternatives I've tried! Thank you so much!

Re: User Motivation Determines the Best Color Scheme for Your Website

#19

Post by chewxy »

yuchi wrote: post #11
cool-RR wrote: post #6

It makes me incredibly sad that people are willing to stare straight ahead at a fucking lightbulb (a.k.a. sites with a white background) and destroy their vision.

There's a lot to discuss here. I personally cannot read through light-on-dark digital designs. After a few lines everything blurs. With dark-on-light on the opposite I can read for hours. Most probably is due to a non-optimal screen both at home and work-place, but I suffer from the same issue even on 2010 iMacs. But the most pleasant scheme for me (I mean, my eyes) is light-gray-on-dark-gray.

It's the contrast between the text/content and the background that affects your comfort though. There was an article about how you should never use black for your text on a white bg[0]. I think the points there are rather salient.

In fact the W3C has a good calculator for colour contrast [1], which I think is a good guide for calculating colour contrast when designing sites

[0]http://ianstormtaylor.com/design-tip-never-use-black/ [1]http://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG20/#contrast-ratiodef

Re: User Motivation Determines the Best Color Scheme for Your Website

#20

Post by MrScruff »

I force all sites to display as something like #E0 on #28. I find it far easier on my eyes. I use a Firefox extension that lets me switch back to the original scheme with a shortcut for the few sites that don't function when you override the colours.
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