Ad Lagendijk
28 November 2009
Stop color #666
Tags: bad contrast, Presentations, web developmentPosted in Presentations quality, Technical (ms word, tex)
I discovered something a few days ago that made me ask the question: Am I mad, or are all web designers out of their minds? The sun was shining in my office and I just could not read the information on the web site of a major multinational company.
In my book I spent tens of pages on how to improve the slides of a presentation. I consider the most important guiding principle whether or not people in the audience can actually read the slides. For a number of reasons the legibility is poor in at least 25% of the scientific presentations I have been going to lately. The two most important causes are: (i) too small font sizes and (ii) bad contrast.
Professional web design
Many of my remarks in my book on presentations also apply to the looks of web pages. You will have to admit that the Internet is full of web pages with poor contrast to start with. In these days that people browse with iPhones and with notebooks in the open air I would tend to think that good contrast is priority number one. I have to disappoint you, web designers are like modern architects: looks before functionality. We pay and they decide. It is a conspiracy.
The color of the base font used in a website is a decisive factor determining the legibility of the site. I would say: go for the best contrast. This means that you must have good reasons to deviate from a white background with black characters. But these days on many professional web sites, indeed of very large companies like Microsoft, the html font color #666 is used. If you are lucky against a white back ground, but often the back ground is not white. I guess numerologists can explain to me that 666 is a magic number.
I have made it quite easy for you. Part of this post has font color #666 and the other part has the darker color black. Is beauty so much more important than clarity? May be I am just naive in believing that text on web sites is meant to be read.
Follow
28 Nov 2009 11:57, Erik TJ Nibbering
The cultural shift that has happened during the last decades is that form now rules over content. Everywhere. An additional advantage is that hard facts (“the naked truth”) may also be softened when deemed necessary, very helpful in politics, but also of use in science. With respect to the font color number I can only say: Hexakosioihexekontahexaphobia,the fear of the Beast, it is a conspiracy indeed!
28 Nov 2009 12:37, Onno
Hi Ad, Nice post. Ofcourse all webdesigners are barking mad, it just comes with the profession! But the real problem with legibility has only partly to do with the webdesign. Webdesigners can only do so much if their well designed webpage is glaring at you from a screen that is bathing in the sun. It is not that their webpage should not consider those circumstances; they could perhaps provide a ‘high contrast’ button, or design a whole set of stylesheets that could also accomodate the visually impaired or blind (which in turn would call for higher designbudgets to implement all those usability options.)
The main issue is that modern day screens are still built on old school assumptions, i.e. you use your computer inside a house where it is firmly placed on a desk in a dark corner of your office. We will have to wait for new technology like currently used for the Kindle and other e-readers before soft tone webpages still stand out on a screen that is covered in the glare of an interrogation light. Or perhaps ask for smarter computers that actually recognize the circumstances you are working under and adapt the screen contrast and resolution accordingly.
Untill then webdesigners will just have to ask for more budget to make sites look great in all kind of circumstances. But under the current economical conditions that is not very likely to happen any day soon.
30 Nov 2009 9:10, Ad Lagendijk
@Erik
Science is content and not form and looks. People will wise up soon. After a plane will crash for instance, because the engineer’s first priority was the looks of the plane, rather its much duller safety.
–
In the mean time it is our duty to point out that the emperor is naked, notwithstanding his new clothes.
–
@Onno
Interesting option: user selects css style file. By the way the biggest internet success of all times, the company Google, uses black on whtite.
4 Dec 2009 12:39, Klaas Wynne
I’m not sure if a quite agree with what you say here such as “science is content and not form and looks”. It is true but not true. A good part of your book is devoted to the proper design of conference slides. It is undeniable that if your slides (and webpages and to some extent papers) are well designed, they are easier to read/understand and allow your audience to appreciate your science better. Thus, there is a place for #666 namely for de-emphasisising certain things (but probably not the main text). In fact, this website seems to use #666 as the background colour and some other elements are in #666 too. Designer-bashing is not so smart.
14 Aug 2010 23:59, Donna B.
I’m experimenting with a new theme for another WordPress blog that uses #666 and came across your post. It’s on a creme background, and is a little hard to read, even though it looks cooler! I think I’ll make it darker, although not black yet. Design is king when you also deal in images.
Also I notice a lot more news sites are using Georgia (LA Times) instead of arial (used here) or Helvetica now. I like it, and it looks more professional, I think. YMMV.