Black text on a gray background is how the web was intended to be experienced.
Stop using grey text (2025)
11–20 of 75 posts
Re: Stop using grey text (2025)
#12I’m looking at gray text on an off-white background right now :P
Re: Stop using grey text (2025)
#13Isn't most of the text on the page grey? It's not white, it's rgb(215,215,216). And the background is not black. Some worse examples are shown, but then the message comes across as "don't use grey unless you know what you're doing, like I do, because I'm using grey while I tell you not to use grey, but mine is okay." Maybe aside from the unset option, something more specific about a minimum contrast threshold would b…
The background is indeed not black, but if it isn't actually white then it's close enough that the text, which i'm sure is indeed mostly actually grey rather than black, shows up well. I've seen worse.
Re: Stop using grey text (2025)
#14Dark/charcoal grey is better than pure black for text. But it's still dark enough that most people would call it black.
It's not, that's a myth. The blackest black your monitor is capable of is best for text.
Re: Stop using grey text (2025)
#15Dark/charcoal grey is better than pure black for text. But it's still dark enough that most people would call it black.
so wrong
Re: Stop using grey text (2025)
#16For an opposing view, https://ianstormtaylor.com/design-tip-never-use-black/
Re: Stop using grey text (2025)
#17A related piece from 2022 that gets a bit more into the why, readability and Accessibility Guidelines evolution etc.
Please Stop Using Grey Text (2022)
https://tangledweb.xyz/please-stop-using-grey-text-3d3e71acf... (https://archive.is/QictZ) [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31420938]
Re: Stop using grey text (2025)
#18Well, as long as you're not going to decide to make the dark background lighter to accommodate the brighter text...
But I would be in favor of sites using variables more so that personal customization is easier. But often this goes against their desire for "branding".
Re: Stop using grey text (2025)
#19For an opposing view, https://ianstormtaylor.com/design-tip-never-use-black/
But the author of that page is not concerned with readability or accessibility. He just wants things to look cool and design-y. One piece of supporting evidence he cites is some random photo he took that doesn't contain #000000 black. That doesn't mean anything, it could be that it's over-exposed, or has poor contrast, or had some silly filter applied. This leads me to think that the author of that page doesn't know what he's talking about.
Re: Stop using grey text (2025)
#20Isn't most of the text on the page grey? It's not white, it's rgb(215,215,216). And the background is not black. Some worse examples are shown, but then the message comes across as "don't use grey unless you know what you're doing, like I do, because I'm using grey while I tell you not to use grey, but mine is okay." Maybe aside from the unset option, something more specific about a minimum contrast threshold would b…
Indeed the WCAG guidelines provide the following criteria
* The visual presentation of text and images of text has a contrast ratio of at least 4.5:1, except for the following * Large Text: Large-scale text and images of large-scale text have a contrast ratio of at least 3:1
Grey is not the problem. Low contrast is the problem.