Working on a large scale intranet, I am forced to look at blue text on a black background. A big time fancy design firm came up with the idea, the VP’s bought into the layout, and it’s not going to change. There is nothing I can do.
Doing user testing, studying focus group answers from surveys, and reading user feedback emails, I can only guess the design firm does not specialize in developing websites.
Black Text on White Background
Sure, everyone does it, black text on a white background. Boring you say. Maybe so, but that is about the only complaint you will ever get about it.
Put blue text on a black background on a busy website, and you will get emails like:
- I have trouble reading the text
- the text is too small (even though its default is 1.2 em or 12px) – It’s not small text creating the problem, it’s poor contrast
- the webmaster is an idiot – why would you do that they ask
- the webmaster is an idiot – I have heard it more than once
- it hurts my eyes
The list goes on, and doing more user testing tomorrow, I am sure to hear some more complaints about it.
So the lesson here…don’t be afraid to use black text on a white background. It may be a little bit boring, but that is the only complaint you will ever get.
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Always the black&white combination do their magic. I asked more people and they suggest me this. I too love to read books with this combination..
i Guess black on white get the user attract
I don’t think black text on white is boring, SIMPLICITY IS THE BEST TRICK. You can try White on blue background, that looks good or Yellow on blue.
It is good idea to mimic adsense ads formats when choosing styles and formats, so I try match line spaces.
I think it is good combination…
I recommend black&white combination, my all time favorite.
Everyone loves it and easy to read and understand..
Yeah very intresting.
Black on white has won the prize for readibility for ages now, to “unbore” it, I tend to give it a light gray touch.
That’s as bad as red text on a gray background, its murder on your eyes!
I agree, that this colors combination is the best. You can use it in any design. Good article.
Nice one. I agree, Black font on white background sounds boring but still the best.. How can you convey your message to your readers if at the first place they find hard to read the text through to bad font color.
Very helpfull tips, thanks. I must use this on my website
Black font and white background is very good combination and its user attraction thing. It looks like professional and simple. Your idea is better then other one.
Hi,I think it is best combination of blue text on black background…keep continue this nice collection.
Exactly what i’m looking for.Thanks for sharing this piece of information.Cool…
This question is misclassified. You would get a better answer if you put it under the correct Yahoo services category or, if you are talking about non-Yahoo software, under the appropriate software category. You must also tell your potential answerers what service or software you are talking about.
Thanks for it. Your ideas is very helpfull.
Effect of this tip is interesting. I used it on my website.
If we want people read our articles we have to write it black on white, otherwise we will lose our users and traffic.
As long as the back ground is very much lighter than the text, and irrespective whether it should be black and white, you’ll be alright.