On 10/11/13 10:01, Pau Giner wrote:
I think that both extremes have negative
consequences.
Contrast is a tool for making more/less prominent what it is more/less
important. If you make everything high contrast, or use a very similar
grey palette for all text it becomes hard to communicate what it is
more important and help users to perceive the visual hierarchy. Thus,
the perceived complexity is increased.
they also make controversial choices like pure white text on a
pure black background
Agree. Another interesting link on why to avoid pure black:
http://ianstormtaylor.com/design-tip-never-use-black/
Amusingly, the text there is too light to be comfortably read, at least
on my screen.
Really, though, it strikes me as a case of taking a thing too far. You
do need to be careful when to use black, but there are also some pretty
clear times when it is appropriate, and it comes down to the same
principle of context as anything else, or any other colour.
With painting, shadows are a particularly strange example. They're
almost never black unless the objects in shadow are black, sure, but
thinking in terms of shadow colour instead of the colours of the things
in shadow doesn't make sense for precisely that reason. All objects have
their own colours, but it's the bits in light that stand out - they're
the significantly brighter versions of the object colours, or the tinted
versions if it's a coloured light. We only use black shadows in more
abstract design because... well, why do we?
Because we don't have real light sources/colours? Because we can't think
in raytracing terms with everything? Just imagine a future when all our
2D interfaces are rendered by raytracing so they have exactly precise
lighting, even matching the external lighting conditions...
More to the point, I do find it a bit odd that folks are so afraid of
black on white just in principle. How harsh is it really, with a good
renderer? For issues of eye strain and such, is that really because of
the palette? Or do perhaps the antialiasing, font itself, or size and
boldness of the text have as much to do with it?