Some times less is more, when it comes to things like contrast.
Change the colour of grey text back to black on website using poor contrast text
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Re: Change the colour of grey text back to black on website using poor contrast text
#12I love the “nothing in nature is true black so don’t use #000000” argument. Correct, nothing is, and your #000000 won’t be either once it’s shown on a physical screen.
This thinking likely stems from art studies: in classical painting, black is generally taught as one of the forbidden pigments because of ”nothing in nature is black” and, more functionally, because it cannot be used to darken other colors without losing vibrancy and thus a black area cannot smoothly blend to another color.
And then there was Goya. :)
Re: Change the colour of grey text back to black on website using poor contrast text
#13Great concept! This should be a standard browser option that has been there for as long as the default font setting overrides.
Re: Change the colour of grey text back to black on website using poor contrast text
#14Earlier quoted context omitted.
I find there's often a high degree of educated comments here on HN. But, when it comes to monitors, readability and the physics of light something happens. #000 on #fff won't burn out your retinas. :)
There's a difference between using "soft black" and using low-contrast gray like you're Apple in the 2010s. The thing about pure black isn't that it's unnatural, but that when paired with white its contrast can actually be uncomfortable and less accessible than a slightly toned down color combination (especially on full brightness).
> The thing about pure black isn't that it's unnatural, but that when paired with white its contrast can actually be uncomfortable and less accessible than a slightly toned down color combination (especially on full brightness).
Can you find a citation for that statement? WCAG 2.1[0] mentions minimum contrast, but not maximum. The success criterion page itself is written in #000 on #fff. :)
https://www.w3.org/WAI/WCAG21/Understanding/contrast-minimum...
Re: Change the colour of grey text back to black on website using poor contrast text
#15I use Darken Text for Chrome for the very same task, a must-have extension.
https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/darken-text/kmonkh...
Re: Change the colour of grey text back to black on website using poor contrast text
#16I recommend people with similar interests take a look at uBlock's filter language (yes, the ad blocker). It's a short and shallow learning curve until you can inject your personal CSS into webpages, and incrementally tweak them. Two small examples: "Show all text on the internet as black" *##*:style(color: black !important) "Show comment text on HN as bold" ycombinator.com##.comment:style(font-weight: bold !important…
How can I change everything that is notification bell red to grey.
Re: Change the colour of grey text back to black on website using poor contrast text
#17Earlier quoted context omitted.
There's a difference between using "soft black" and using low-contrast gray like you're Apple in the 2010s. The thing about pure black isn't that it's unnatural, but that when paired with white its contrast can actually be uncomfortable and less accessible than a slightly toned down color combination (especially on full brightness).
> The thing about pure black isn't that it's unnatural, but that when paired with white its contrast can actually be uncomfortable and less accessible than a slightly toned down color combination (especially on full brightness). Can you find a citation for that statement? WCAG 2.1[0] mentions minimum contrast, but not maximum. The success criterion page itself is written in #000 on #fff. :) https://www.w3.org/WAI/WCA…
https://dm-ed.com/info/contrast-sensitivity/
A lot of high contrast combinations are less accessible and even if it doesn't make the text illegible, too much contrast is going to be a strain on the eyes for most people.
Generally, WCAG AA or AAA is enough for most people and you hit that already with #555 on a white background. Something like #1a1a1a is close to the darkest I'd use in most cases.
Re: Change the colour of grey text back to black on website using poor contrast text
#18I recommend people with similar interests take a look at uBlock's filter language (yes, the ad blocker). It's a short and shallow learning curve until you can inject your personal CSS into webpages, and incrementally tweak them. Two small examples: "Show all text on the internet as black" *##*:style(color: black !important) "Show comment text on HN as bold" ycombinator.com##.comment:style(font-weight: bold !important…
Dark Reader renders 90% of pages fine with no tweaking, the remainder aren’t hard to switch to an alternative mode.
Best $7.99 I’ve spent.
Re: Change the colour of grey text back to black on website using poor contrast text
#19I love the “nothing in nature is true black so don’t use #000000” argument. Correct, nothing is, and your #000000 won’t be either once it’s shown on a physical screen.
And nothing is true white so don't use #ffffff.
We can continue with blue, green, red. /s
Re: Change the colour of grey text back to black on website using poor contrast text
#20Some times less is more, when it comes to things like contrast.
Depends on the monitor. If you’re using a normal LCD or you’ve spent your money on features other than contrast (namely resolution and latency), black text already looks grey. No need to make it any more grey than it already is.