{ Wednesday, December 3, 2003 }
One thing that makes me grumpy is that so many excellent weblogs have grey text. This is, I think, more prevalent on Moveable Type and Typepad blogs (as well as that really popular Blogger template that Mena Trott designed), as many of the templates provided have grey text. I even used one myself, though I changed the line spacing. That template is the least legible one of all, and I've stopped reading weblogs that use it, which, sadly, include some of my former favorites.
LINK | 8:58 AM | TB
What if the use a black background and a light grey text? Is that so bad?
Kyle | December 3, 2003 9:41 AMMaybe try reading 'em in a newsreader, then you can set whatever colors/fonts you like.
brian w | December 3, 2003 11:51 AMOh, that's why I never see your name on my site meter.
Yes, Caterina, I've had a number of complaints about my template, most
recently from Gerrit Lansing. I'll have to think about this.
I've tried to enlarge the type size, which I was able to do once before, and for some reason now won't work.
Nick Piombino | December 3, 2003 8:19 PMAh, but I have no problem with your site, Nick. You site is very legible!!
Caterina | December 3, 2003 8:51 PMGlad to hear you weren't thinking of :::fait accompli :: because I've grown attached to that old template- and I do respect your opionion, Caterina!
I guess the ones I have trouble reading are the ones that are white on gray, gold on gray, one that is orange letters on gray/green-
(Michaela Cooper's Mikkarea...
Hmmm... I'm sure I remember some research on reading speed online that suggested that a dark grey on white was more readable than pure black - something to do with the contrast between pure black and white on most cheap n nasty monitors causing a kind of visual bleed.
Tho' I might have made that up.
c | December 4, 2003 7:09 AMI think you did make that up. AFIAK, the best combos are black-on-(light)yellow for print, and white-on-(dark)blue for screen.
Stewart | December 4, 2003 3:25 PMBut! I sure remembered wrong, at least accoring to this study of reading times on screen with different color combinations.
Black-on-white was best, followed by blue-on-white (which beat out white-on-blue). In general, dark-on-light beat out the reverse.
Stewart | December 4, 2003 3:31 PMThanks for the link - I was having one of those lazy / anti-Google moments..!
In a It's-Friday kind of way, I've just noticed that they didn't test dark grey (#333333) on pure white. Damn those academics...
c | December 5, 2003 1:24 AMYou know you can adjust your gamma, right? If you haven't set your PowerBook to windows gamma (System Preferences: Displays: Color: Calibrate), give it a try. It'll make those grey on white sites much more legible.
Derek | December 5, 2003 11:30 AM{ Post a comment }
Not to mention that those templates are completely broken on Windows/IE. (Text often disappears because of a CSS bug, they force horizontal scrolling at any resolution, etc.) I wish there are was some way to retroactively re-template the zillion MT blogs with those default templates ...
Stewart | December 3, 2003 9:18 AM