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User Motivation Determines the Best Color Scheme for Your Website

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

#31

Post by HCIdivision17 »

tzs wrote: post #24
aristus wrote: post #3

Utter bullshit. The original background color of websites was #c0c0c0, the same default color grey used in desktop apps. It was a big to-do, switching that default. The reason most sites are blue is because the human eye is better able to distinguish shades of blue. Also, a significant % of people are red/green colorblind.

> The reason most sites are blue is because the human eye is better able to distinguish shades of blue. Huh? It's shades of yellow/green that we are best able to distinguish. We're not good at blue.

Yup. Mind, color is _really_ complicated. The math to calculate color spaces is completely non-obvious, the eye's reactions to colors is subtle, and the brain seems to interpret colors in interesting ways. (I remember at work, we needed to figure out why a thing was getting _more_ red as we shifted it into the blue spectrum... turns out that's why they call it ultraviolet.)

I'll refer to a cool demonstration of this in action: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1891753

It's not scientific, but it's certainly telling.

TL;DR: Green is the color we see well.

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

#32

Post by pygy_ »

aristus wrote: post #3

Utter bullshit. The original background color of websites was #c0c0c0, the same default color grey used in desktop apps. It was a big to-do, switching that default. The reason most sites are blue is because the human eye is better able to distinguish shades of blue. Also, a significant % of people are red/green colorblind.

I don't get the point of your comment, nor how it got to the top of the page.

The article gives an evidence-based assessment of the effect of colors on user engagement according to their mindset.

The default color of Netscape 2 has nothing to do with it.

And your eyes suck at blue: http://nfggames.com/games/ntsc/visual.shtm

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

#33

Post by 0x0 »

eru wrote: post #22
aristus wrote: post #3

Utter bullshit. The original background color of websites was #c0c0c0, the same default color grey used in desktop apps. It was a big to-do, switching that default. The reason most sites are blue is because the human eye is better able to distinguish shades of blue. Also, a significant % of people are red/green colorblind.

> The reason most sites are blue is because the human eye is better able to distinguish shades of blue. Than what other shades? I thought humans were good at shades of green? Anyway, do you have any sources?

16bit RGB graphics modes allocate an extra bit to the green channel, so I think you're right:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_monochrome_and_RGB_pale...

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

#34

Post by chewxy »

lucian1900 wrote: post #21

Because of the historical accident of paper being white and ink being dark. The human eye is somewhat better at reading light-on-dark, but most people aren't used to it.

I think it's been overly stated in this thread, but it would appear that the majority of the problems with dark-on-white are the brightness, contrast and luminosity of the designs.

W3C apparently knew this was a problem and had provided an algorithm to measure relative contrast/luminosity, which is good to play around and test with: http://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG20/#contrast-ratiodef

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

#35

Post by majormajor »

lucian1900 wrote: post #21

Because of the historical accident of paper being white and ink being dark. The human eye is somewhat better at reading light-on-dark, but most people aren't used to it.

But there's also the historical accident of early computers primarily using light-on-dark displays (I always found amber-on-black mode less harsh on the eyes than green-on-black, personally—but just don't get me started on white-on-blue, bah!), which we then moved away from in favor of dark on light.

(If I had to guess the reason for that historical accident, I'd think it had to do with "white" not being a particularly uniform color on a lot of older CRTs, but one with varying hue and intensity in different regions.)

I find light on dark hard to read, even in low light. If I'm reading on my phone at night and use light-on-dark, the text looks blurrier to me than if I change it to dark-on-light (where "light" is a shade of gray that isn't harsh in a dark room).

(I wonder if dark ink on white paper took off over white ink/paint/whatever on dark paper because most people found it more readable. Anyone know about the history of paper/inks/paints?)

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

#36

Post by SkyMarshal »

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…

Love that extension, thanks!

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

#37

Post by pooriaazimi »

lucian1900 wrote: post #21

Because of the historical accident of paper being white and ink being dark. The human eye is somewhat better at reading light-on-dark, but most people aren't used to it.

I can read a dark-on-light text at normal size (on a retina display) for an hour without feeling my eyes are hurting, but I literally cannot read light-on-dark text more than 10 minutes and have to bump the font size one or two points...

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

#38

Post by bravura »

iota wrote: post #17

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.…

I believe in using a black background for talk slides.

Example: http://new.livestream.com/gigaom/gigaomroadmap/videos/579403...

I would prefer dark gray from an aesthetic perspective. But the reason I choose black is simple:

Often, the LCD projector is not pointed straight at the backdrop or maximized correctly. If your slide background is not black, there is a perceptible margin, and your slide area is shaped like a trapezoid, not a rectangle. Using a black slide background minimizes this margin, and makes it look like your slides correctly fill the backdrop.

Just my two cents. I'm curious if people feel strongly against this approach.

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

#39

Post by paupino_masano »

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…

I didn't know about this extension so thank you! If it does Solarized Dark then I'm sold: I'm not a fan when it is too dark, but it's definitely better than the white backgrounds I often see.

Next step: move away from the big paragraphs in small writing... or maybe it's just that I need glasses :)

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

#40

Post by MemorableZebra »

lucian1900 wrote: post #21

Because of the historical accident of paper being white and ink being dark. The human eye is somewhat better at reading light-on-dark, but most people aren't used to it.

Is there any experimental evidence to back this up? I don't personally find switching black and white to give me any reading advantage.
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