[opensuse] web design question
Hello: This is kind of off-topic here but I don't know where to ask it to get an answer. More and more web sites have a design with gray/light-gray text on light background. One example is this site:https://www.siteground.com/support but there are plenty of similar ones. This design puts a lot of (unnecessary) stress on the eye. Is this design type simply the result of stupidity, or is there valid rationale supporting it? Thanks in advance, Istvan -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org
Dne Po 27. dubna 2015 17:48:15, Istvan Gabor napsal(a):
Hello:
This is kind of off-topic here but I don't know where to ask it to get an answer. More and more web sites have a design with gray/light-gray text on light background. One example is this site:https://www.siteground.com/support but there are plenty of similar ones. This design puts a lot of (unnecessary) stress on the eye. Is this design type simply the result of stupidity, or is there valid rationale supporting it?
Thanks in advance,
Istvan
Sorry, I don't know the answer, but for similar thing I'd ask at https://webmasters.stackexchange.com/ Vojtěch -- Vojtěch Zeisek Komunita openSUSE GNU/Linuxu Community of the openSUSE GNU/Linux http://www.opensuse.org/ http://trapa.cz/
Am 27.04.2015 um 17:48 schrieb Istvan Gabor:
Hello:
This is kind of off-topic here but I don't know where to ask it to get an answer. More and more web sites have a design with gray/light-gray text on light background. One example is this site:https://www.siteground.com/support but there are plenty of similar ones. This design puts a lot of (unnecessary) stress on the eye. Is this design type simply the result of stupidity, or is there valid rationale supporting it?
Thanks in advance,
Istvan
I like the design of the mentioned site. It's discreet and hurts my eyes less than if it would be hard black on white. I think it is quite hard to find a combination of colours that does not hurt, is not sugar-sweet, aggressive or with psychologically effective but unwanted effects. Shades of gray are neutral and adecuate for a company that wants to transmit a serious image. I think... Maybe your contrast settings are not otimal. For me it's easy readable and I don't have especially good eyes. -- Daniel Bauer photographer Basel Barcelona http://www.daniel-bauer.com room in Barcelona: https://www.airbnb.es/rooms/2416137 -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org
Daniel Bauer composed on 2015-04-27 18:15 (UTC+0200):
Istvan Gabor composed:
This is kind of off-topic here but I don't know where to ask it to get an answer. More and more web sites have a design with gray/light-gray text on light background. One example is this site:https://www.siteground.com/support but there are plenty of similar ones. This design puts a lot of (unnecessary) stress on the eye.
Unlike zoom, there is no simple defense against this that doesn't impose a heavy cost. Browsers have a configurable setting that can disable site colors, but it's all or nothing, with no hotkey to quickly turn on or off or tweak. This bookmark: javascript:(function(){var%20newSS,%20styles='*%20{%20background:%20white%20!%20important;%20color:%20black%20!important%20}%20:link,%20:link%20*%20{%20color:%20#0000EE%20!important%20}%20:visited,%20:visited%20*%20{%20color:%20#551A8B%20!important%20}';%20if(document.createStyleSheet)%20{%20document.createStyleSheet(%22javascript:'%22+styles+%22'%22);%20}%20else%20{%20newSS=document.createElement('link');%20newSS.rel='stylesheet';%20newSS.href='data:text/css,'+escape(styles);%20document.getElementsByTagName(%22head%22)[0].appendChild(newSS);%20}%20})(); called "readable" turns off (all) site colors with one click, but it does not persist through reloads or domains like zoom does in contemporary browser versions. User stylesheets are a method requiring a rather high investment to produce only adequate results that I use to cope with sites, among them opensuse.org, that I frequent. http://fm.no-ip.com/Css/Share/ has most of those I've created and use in my Mozillas. Typically mine deal with more than just brightness, contrast and text size. It's a lot of work, but I feel like my eyes are worth protecting against recurring insanity.
Is this design type simply the result of stupidity, or is there valid rationale supporting it?
More naive than stupid usually in this onerous monkey see monkey do design fad. There is broken rationale behind it. High brightness and contrast can hurt. But, it shouldn't be up to web designers to arbitrarily determine in advance that less is better, like they do almost universally in assuming your browser's default text size is anything other than optimal and declaring a baseline size that either disregards it (the majority, e.g. http://distrowatch.com/css/news.css declares 13px) or arbitrarily reduces the default (substantial minority, e.g. https://www.opensuse.org/css/frontpage.css delares .9em) as their baseline. WAG 2.0 provides a standard to measure adequacy of brightness and contrast. Because it exists, stylists seem to think anything meeting the minimum standard is equivalent to good, which in practice usually is not. http://juicystudio.com/services/luminositycontrastratio.php can be used to check particular color combinations, providing a basis from which to complain to the maintainers of your favorite sites.
I like the design of the mentioned site. It's discreet and hurts my eyes less than if it would be hard black on white.
If black on white hurts your eyes, almost certainly your display is maladjusted. Displays are typically shipped with brightness and contrast set for retail displays set up on shelves in brightly lit stores, often at or near 100%, so that they jump out at and attract buyers in spite of high ambient light. Proper installation after acquisition includes adjusting those controls to the actual environment. Keeping them maladjusted is misuse that can accelerate aging, eventually making 100% inadequate before the end of design life. So, this fad is ecologically poor as well, destined to send more products into landfills prematurely.
Maybe your contrast settings are not otimal. For me it's easy readable and I don't have especially good eyes.
A serious A11Y/U7Y problem with sites that use gray instead of black for text is that brightness and contrast cannot be set above the display's maximums to improve legibility, while they can be reduced to unlimited degree. IOW, it's nearly always readily possible for a user to make black text less troublesome, while it is often the case that a user cannot readily, if at all, make gray text less troublesome. -- "The wise are known for their understanding, and pleasant words are persuasive." Proverbs 16:21 (New Living Translation) Team OS/2 ** Reg. Linux User #211409 ** a11y rocks! Felix Miata *** http://fm.no-ip.com/ -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org
Am 27.04.2015 um 22:34 schrieb Felix Miata:
Daniel Bauer composed on 2015-04-27 18:15 (UTC+0200):
I like the design of the mentioned site. It's discreet and hurts my eyes less than if it would be hard black on white.
If black on white hurts your eyes, almost certainly your display is maladjusted.
I've got a professionally adjusted/calibrated eizo screen :-) I was referring to high contrast designs, like a text book printed on very white paper, which to my eyes is not pleasurable to read and not beautiful. I prefer the slightly broken white paper that reduces the contrast a bit, but these colours are very difficult to achieve on screen as they tend to look dirty or kitschy on many screens. It's easier to reduce the blackness of the text than the whiteness of the background. The mentioned site wants to distinguish between titles and text without "hammering" the titles into your brain and without using a hip colour mess. I think they did it quite good. It looks calm and structured, easy to browse. Maximum contrast != best contrast. But that's all a matter of personal taste. In general dark letters on bright background seem to be easier than the reverse. In cases where I cannot easily read a text on screen I select the text and if that's not enough I copy the text to a kwrite window and read it there. That's a matter of seconds (I have an icon ready that opens an empty kwrite, also to take temporary notes). It's off topic but at least for once I can answer something on this list :-) Have a nice day everybody! Daniel -- Daniel Bauer photographer Basel Barcelona http://www.daniel-bauer.com room in Barcelona: https://www.airbnb.es/rooms/2416137 -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org
On 04/27/2015 11:48 AM, Istvan Gabor wrote:
Hello:
This is kind of off-topic here but I don't know where to ask it to get an answer. More and more web sites have a design with gray/light-gray text on light background. One example is this site:https://www.siteground.com/support but there are plenty of similar ones. This design puts a lot of (unnecessary) stress on the eye. Is this design type simply the result of stupidity, or is there valid rationale supporting it?
As with so many things there are "fashions" and "fashionable trends" in web styling. Essentially you are asking if a fashion makes sense or is stupid. -- A: Yes. > Q: Are you sure? >> A: Because it reverses the logical flow of conversation. >>> Q: Why is top posting frowned upon? -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org
Anton Aylward írta:
On 04/27/2015 11:48 AM, Istvan Gabor wrote:
Hello:
This is kind of off-topic here but I don't know where to ask it to get an answer. More and more web sites have a design with gray/light-gray text on light background. One example is this site:https://www.siteground.com/support but there are plenty of similar ones. This design puts a lot of (unnecessary) stress on the eye. Is this design type simply the result of stupidity, or is there valid rationale supporting it?
As with so many things there are "fashions" and "fashionable trends" in web styling.
Essentially you are asking if a fashion makes sense or is stupid.
Thanks for your input. What I am interested in is if this is only fashion or there is something else beyond fashion. For example if there are studies that showed not having too much contrast is better for the eye, or on certain devices it can be read better, anything. Like Daniel wrote his eyes are not stressed by the gray text on white background. Thanks, Istvan -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org
Is this design type simply the result of stupidity, or is there valid rationale supporting it?
he worst I know is white on black :-( grey may be valid if the sentence is of much less importance than the other one, but i fact colors should be avoided because color vision is very randomly spread around humans and many have some sort of disability abour colors. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Color_blindness I know this because I teached in classes of electronic, where color codes where common, and all my students where tested on this. that said you can go to firefox properties, content and adjust the dropdown list on "always" to be able to choose your own colors. this sometimes gives curious results... jdd -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org
On 04/27/2015 02:23 PM, Istvan Gabor wrote:
Anton Aylward írta:
On 04/27/2015 11:48 AM, Istvan Gabor wrote:
Hello:
This is kind of off-topic here but I don't know where to ask it to get an answer. More and more web sites have a design with gray/light-gray text on light background. One example is this site:https://www.siteground.com/support but there are plenty of similar ones. This design puts a lot of (unnecessary) stress on the eye. Is this design type simply the result of stupidity, or is there valid rationale supporting it?
As with so many things there are "fashions" and "fashionable trends" in web styling.
Essentially you are asking if a fashion makes sense or is stupid.
Thanks for your input. What I am interested in is if this is only fashion or there is something else beyond fashion. For example if there are studies that showed not having too much contrast is better for the eye, or on certain devices it can be read better, anything. Like Daniel wrote his eyes are not stressed by the gray text on white background.
If you want to term fashion aesthetics then yes there are many studies. it not just the colour scheme that hurts the eyes, its the font, layout, styling and more. Examples at http://www.webbyawards.com/winners/2013/web/website-features-and-design/best... I don't think this site http://www.abelard.org/ will ever win! -- sarchasm (n): The gulf between the author of sarcastic wit and the person who doesn't get it. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org
On 27-4-2015 17:48, Istvan Gabor wrote:
Hello:
This is kind of off-topic here but I don't know where to ask it to get an answer. More and more web sites have a design with gray/light-gray text on light background. One example is this site:https://www.siteground.com/support but there are plenty of similar ones. This design puts a lot of (unnecessary) stress on the eye. Is this design type simply the result of stupidity, or is there valid rationale supporting it?
Thanks in advance,
Istvan
Under Internet Explorer this can be solved by going to: Tools/Internet Options/General/Accesebility and check the option 'Ignore colos specified on webpages' Under FireFox: Tools/Options/Content/Colors check 'Use system colors' and 'Override....' -> 'Always' An equivalent of these settings must (or should?) exist on other browsers.... -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org
They are picking out the headers and content with the difference between black and gray. There may be better ways of doing it but it does give a clean look. Personally I don't care for black text on white background. I find that sites that use a muted background color with a darker text preferable. Or, conversely, a darker background with lighter text. Either one as long as the color combination is compatible. On 04/27/2015 10:48 AM, Istvan Gabor wrote:
Hello:
This is kind of off-topic here but I don't know where to ask it to get an answer. More and more web sites have a design with gray/light-gray text on light background. One example is this site:https://www.siteground.com/support but there are plenty of similar ones. This design puts a lot of (unnecessary) stress on the eye. Is this design type simply the result of stupidity, or is there valid rationale supporting it?
Thanks in advance,
Istvan
-- A cat is a puzzle with no solution. Cats are tiny little women in fur coats. When you get all full of yourself try giving orders to a cat. _ _... ..._ _ _._ ._ ..... ._.. ... .._ -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org
participants (8)
-
Anton Aylward -
Billie Walsh -
Daniel Bauer -
Felix Miata -
Istvan Gabor -
jdd -
Luuk -
Vojtěch Zeisek