Maybe this is victim-blaming, but my suggestion to the post’s author is to update her prescription. I have astigmatism. This solution worked for me.
Never Use White Text on Black: Astygmatism and Conference Slides (2017)
21–30 of 62 posts
Re: Never Use White Text on Black: Astygmatism and Conference Slides (2017)
#22I see the white on black ok for a few moments, but soon my eyes can't see anything (or rather, can't discern shapes and text and such).
The worst are websites with white text on black backgrounds. Arstechnica used to do this, and I was unable to read more than a paragraph or two. Then when I would leave and go back to normal sites, I would have all kinds of weird ghost blocks in my vision (character sized).
Re: Never Use White Text on Black: Astygmatism and Conference Slides (2017)
#23I have astigmatism and I have no idea what the author's talking about. I stare at white on black terminal text all day without issue (maybe it's different for presentations?). I've also made presentations with white on black text before and had no problem reading the slides.
Re: Never Use White Text on Black: Astygmatism and Conference Slides (2017)
#24I have significant astigmatism and I prefer light text on a dark background. When I used a Mac, I found the best solution to get everything dark enough was to use a light theme and used Mac’s Accessibility Menu to invert the screen colors. I spend 7-8 hours a day on a dark terminal with light letters.
Re: Never Use White Text on Black: Astygmatism and Conference Slides (2017)
#25White text on black is my second favorite. Only thing better is green text on black. The reason is very simple: There's less light coming from the screen into my eye. Every monitor I've ever owned I reduce the brightness to the lowest setting possible, and they are still too bright. Green is best because the high resolution parts of your eye only see green. So the blue and red components of white are just unnecessary…
Oh boy, are you going to love this state-of-the-art new display technology: https://c1.staticflickr.com/5/4142/4765726924_0c81d46a5b_b.j...
(Seriously, though, there may be an underlying physiological reason why the glow of a green phosphor CRT was so pleasing...)
Re: Never Use White Text on Black: Astygmatism and Conference Slides (2017)
#26White text on black is my second favorite. Only thing better is green text on black. The reason is very simple: There's less light coming from the screen into my eye. Every monitor I've ever owned I reduce the brightness to the lowest setting possible, and they are still too bright. Green is best because the high resolution parts of your eye only see green. So the blue and red components of white are just unnecessary…
I'm curious about your experience with HDR / other real-black displays. I have the same "problem", but find the new TVs with high contrast / darker blacks much nicer to look at. New MBP seems good too. I haven't tried a HDR monitor at home though - maybe you have some experience?
Re: Never Use White Text on Black: Astygmatism and Conference Slides (2017)
#27that's a bit disappointing, seeing as this format is by far my favourite because of it being very simple and aesthetically pleasing. any suggestions? my intuitive response to this would be black on brightly hued navy blue, but i worry that is also low-contrast, which also causes issues. can't please everyone!
Black on white. That is #000000 on #ffffff.
Re: Never Use White Text on Black: Astygmatism and Conference Slides (2017)
#28that's a bit disappointing, seeing as this format is by far my favourite because of it being very simple and aesthetically pleasing. any suggestions? my intuitive response to this would be black on brightly hued navy blue, but i worry that is also low-contrast, which also causes issues. can't please everyone!
This option sounds like it would be a poor reading for all. You can't please everyone but it seems like you can figure out how to displease most.
Re: Never Use White Text on Black: Astygmatism and Conference Slides (2017)
#29I have astigmatism. White on black or black on white both halo. I think both are equally clear.
It would be somewhat surprising otherwise-- the relevant part of vision for this is linear and should work the same in both directions. Though if the room is so dark that my puples will be dilated then that is obviously going to cause a loss of acuity ... but if that is what the author is going for then the advice should be to not present in a pitch black room.
In a dimmer room I have a small preference for white (or green/amber) on black so that the overall brightness isn't blowing out my vision.
Blue focuses noticeably worse, so I have serious trouble reading things like blue on black or black on blue... esp if the blue is some fancy LED sign or something that uses a shorter wavelength.
I think articles like this that don't support their advice with some kind of study of many people ... is pretty low value because it's too likely to just be repeating the author's own personal preferences and disguising them as research supported Truths.
Safer advice would be: Some people have poor vision, make your text extra big and clear even if you could read something less legible.
Re: Never Use White Text on Black: Astygmatism and Conference Slides (2017)
#30What’s the alternative? Hopefully not black text on white slides. That’s terrible for me and others.
For me, I find that a very dark gray background with a light gray text color is best. I like dark themes, but I get "ghosting" if the contrast is too great.
This is hard for virtually everyone to read. I don't think making the reading experience terrible for 99.999% to make it work for 0.001% makes much sense.