I agree that this maybe be being taken to far. There's a time and a place
for low-contrast smaller text, but certainly there are limits as well. It's
mostly valuable for short labels containing non-critical information and
the value it offers is, as Pau mentioned, communicating the difference of
importance and priority of information on a page. Certainly the examples on
the contrastreblion site are bad, but I don't think we were ever
considering making the text content of our pages #CCCCCC.
I think the simple answer is "you better have a really good reason if you
are using really light text on pure white". Probably best to limit it to
#555 or so.
- Trevor
On Sun, Nov 10, 2013 at 11:07 AM, Isarra Yos <zhorishna(a)gmail.com> wrote:
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?
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