1 Jan 2008

Black background for text?

I know how much you love that black background of your blog. I accept, that background colour makes your blog look cool. But you know what? It's very hard to read white text on a black background. Especially when the text is in 8 point sans-serif font. If you wish to do me (and all the people like me who are almost always on computers) a favour, please:
  • Don't use black as the background colour (some dark shade of gray is ok I guess). Switching between other apps that use white as background colour and your blog is a very bad exercise for the eyes.
  • Don't use colours for emphasize -- use bold, italics etc. (Reason: when the post is read from an RSS reader like Google Reader, all we can see is yellow (or that other bright colour you used for highlighting) text on a white background. Obviously, yellow text on white background is not readable.)
  • Don't assume your blog is readable in its current design. Different devices/computers render things differently. Shown below is a typical BlogSpot blog on my GNU/Linux machine. I think it looks much better on a Windows machine.
  • Don't assume everyone can read it if you are able to read it. There are people with all kinds of inabilities. You never know how your readers feel. (I asked my optician, "I can read all the letters that you showed while testing. But I can't read text from that poster out there. Maybe I should try a different lens?" He answered me with a smile, "Human eyes cannot easily read white text on a black background. This is normal, you're fine with this lens.") Just think about it -- almost ALL the software that you use has dark text on a light background. This cannot be a coincidence.
Have a wonderful 2008 you all! PS: I am not complaining here. I am just requesting people to make their blogs/web sites a bit more easier on my eyes.

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