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How to destroy special collections with social media

sarahwerner.net

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Re: How to destroy special collections with social media

#11

Post by sgk284 »

sharpercoder wrote: post #10
exodust wrote: post #5

I like the Merriweather font on her blog, very easy to read. This is now my fav serif font. The #444444 color helps too. I suppose she's a book historian - she knows what she's doing in that regard. I wish more bloggers knew the value of not making text completely black on white. On the topic, what more can be said? She's spot on with "don’t confuse popularity with engagement." It's not just special collections that…

What is the reason for not having #000 on #FFF or #FFF on #000? Personally, I find the contrast suboptimal in any other combination.

Contrast tends to be a balance. #000 on #FFF (or vice-versa) rarely ever occurs in nature. It also tends to strain eyes. Optimal contrast for most people tends to involve a dark grey, as seen on her website.

The easiest design trick to make a website more reader friendly is to move a black font to a grey font. (Obviously there are exceptions and personal preference involved, such as yours)

Re: How to destroy special collections with social media

#12

Post by lucianmarin »

sgk284 wrote: post #11
sharpercoder wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is the reason for not having #000 on #FFF or #FFF on #000? Personally, I find the contrast suboptimal in any other combination.

Contrast tends to be a balance. #000 on #FFF (or vice-versa) rarely ever occurs in nature. It also tends to strain eyes. Optimal contrast for most people tends to involve a dark grey, as seen on her website. The easiest design trick to make a website more reader friendly is to move a black font to a grey font. (Obviously there are exceptions and personal preference involved, such as yours)

There’s no display with infinite contrast. #000 and #FFF are some sort of gray on any display. If you lower the display brightness to save battery life, high contrast is the only thing that works OK.

Re: How to destroy special collections with social media

#13

Post by jasode »

sgk284 wrote: post #11
sharpercoder wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is the reason for not having #000 on #FFF or #FFF on #000? Personally, I find the contrast suboptimal in any other combination.

Contrast tends to be a balance. #000 on #FFF (or vice-versa) rarely ever occurs in nature. It also tends to strain eyes. Optimal contrast for most people tends to involve a dark grey, as seen on her website. The easiest design trick to make a website more reader friendly is to move a black font to a grey font. (Obviously there are exceptions and personal preference involved, such as yours)

>#000 on #FFF (or vice-versa) rarely ever occurs in nature. It also tends to strain eyes. Optimal contrast for most people tends to involve a dark grey,

Is there actual scientific research that supports this?

Most printed books have dark black ink instead of grey ink. (Although the paper of the pages may not be #FFF white but an off white.)

In the office, the laser printers lay down dark black toner on crisp white paper. The paper brightness can be ISO 98 or even ISO 102 and the black toner is extremely comfortable to read.

If your statement was true, I would think there would be a massive demand for dark grey toner printed on light grey paper because it is "less strain on the eyes."

The evolution of Amazon Kindles are also moving towards better contrast. Early models were dark grey e-ink on light grey background. The latest models are getting closer to the ideal of black text on white background and the customer reviews support that improvement.

A comparison datapoint: Using F12 inspector, I notice that sarahwerner.net paragraphs uses rgb(68,68,68) while HN posts' text use rgb(0,0,0). I think most of would find HN text to be more comfortable to read.

Re: How to destroy special collections with social media

#14

Post by davidgerard »

visarga wrote: post #7

I bemoan the disaster that is happening with the BBC archive of radio and TV (about 1,000,000 hours of content!) - they didn't manage to place it online completely, thus, it is not shared, commented upon, put in collections, and integrated into this living fabric that is the social media. In the meantime cat videos, art videos and all sorts oddities flood youtube, FB and reddit, and get the lion share of attention.

The problem there is that the various rights encumbrances are a near-insuperable barrier. Not just copyright, but the rights of the performers. Everything is designed to work right with television broadcast.

Re: How to destroy special collections with social media

#15

Post by Keyframe »

jasode wrote: post #13
sgk284 wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Contrast tends to be a balance. #000 on #FFF (or vice-versa) rarely ever occurs in nature. It also tends to strain eyes. Optimal contrast for most people tends to involve a dark grey, as seen on her website. The easiest design trick to make a website more reader friendly is to move a black font to a grey font. (Obviously there are exceptions and personal preference involved, such as yours)

>#000 on #FFF (or vice-versa) rarely ever occurs in nature. It also tends to strain eyes. Optimal contrast for most people tends to involve a dark grey, Is there actual scientific research that supports this? Most printed books have dark black ink instead of grey ink. (Although the paper of the pages may not be #FFF white but an off white.) In the office, the laser printers lay down dark black toner on crisp white pa…

Is there actual scientific research that supports this?

I don't know about OP, but in painting and in video/film art pure black and white are encouraged to be avoided. There they are called superblack and superwhite. In paintings it's because there is rarely (or not at all) such color in nature and in video (same for painting) also because it used to degrade signal for some reason in analogue era (strong yellow was avoided as well).

Re: How to destroy special collections with social media

#16

Post by DanBC »

sgk284 wrote: post #11
sharpercoder wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is the reason for not having #000 on #FFF or #FFF on #000? Personally, I find the contrast suboptimal in any other combination.

Contrast tends to be a balance. #000 on #FFF (or vice-versa) rarely ever occurs in nature. It also tends to strain eyes. Optimal contrast for most people tends to involve a dark grey, as seen on her website. The easiest design trick to make a website more reader friendly is to move a black font to a grey font. (Obviously there are exceptions and personal preference involved, such as yours)

I agree with you, but her website is hard to read for some people.

If people are going to tweak contrast they should have dark text on an off-white background, rather than strog white background and mid-grey text.

Re: How to destroy special collections with social media

#18

Post by kmfrk »

exodust wrote: post #5

I like the Merriweather font on her blog, very easy to read. This is now my fav serif font. The #444444 color helps too. I suppose she's a book historian - she knows what she's doing in that regard. I wish more bloggers knew the value of not making text completely black on white. On the topic, what more can be said? She's spot on with "don’t confuse popularity with engagement." It's not just special collections that…

The font is very thin on Windows Chrome (which sounds like a broken record, because this has always been the case). If you intend to use that font for a general audience, make the colour darker or bump up the font weight.

Re: How to destroy special collections with social media

#19

Post by sp332 »

jasode wrote: post #13
sgk284 wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Contrast tends to be a balance. #000 on #FFF (or vice-versa) rarely ever occurs in nature. It also tends to strain eyes. Optimal contrast for most people tends to involve a dark grey, as seen on her website. The easiest design trick to make a website more reader friendly is to move a black font to a grey font. (Obviously there are exceptions and personal preference involved, such as yours)

>#000 on #FFF (or vice-versa) rarely ever occurs in nature. It also tends to strain eyes. Optimal contrast for most people tends to involve a dark grey, Is there actual scientific research that supports this? Most printed books have dark black ink instead of grey ink. (Although the paper of the pages may not be #FFF white but an off white.) In the office, the laser printers lay down dark black toner on crisp white pa…

But HN has a shaded background, which still reduces the contrast.

Re: How to destroy special collections with social media

#20

Post by DanBC »

jasode wrote: post #13
sgk284 wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Contrast tends to be a balance. #000 on #FFF (or vice-versa) rarely ever occurs in nature. It also tends to strain eyes. Optimal contrast for most people tends to involve a dark grey, as seen on her website. The easiest design trick to make a website more reader friendly is to move a black font to a grey font. (Obviously there are exceptions and personal preference involved, such as yours)

>#000 on #FFF (or vice-versa) rarely ever occurs in nature. It also tends to strain eyes. Optimal contrast for most people tends to involve a dark grey, Is there actual scientific research that supports this? Most printed books have dark black ink instead of grey ink. (Although the paper of the pages may not be #FFF white but an off white.) In the office, the laser printers lay down dark black toner on crisp white pa…

White paper doesn't have glare, unlike some monitors.
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