Black or white?

[Blackrat]

Are we talking only about the frontpage or the forums also? For the former, I don't really care, since I only stop by it while coming to forums while at work. For the whole site, well black is kind of iconic for ENW, isn't it? I like it.

 

[ki11erDM]

The new color (or colour if you must) is not bad at all. The gold/red on black is not killing my eyes like the white on black does (as the forums still are).

 

[Walking Dad]

Black. It's easier on the eyes, especially during nightly browsing - no need to have your retinas burned.

And it's ENWorld's "thing".

And white only looks good if done well (like all these gradient-filled Web 2.0 websites, otherwise it looks like very bare HTML).

So, yeah, black, please.

And for the work surfers, I recommed Zap Colors - it's pretty universal!

Cheers, LT.

Is there something to change the backround to black and the script to white? Like a negative of your mentioned application?

 

[Kheti sa-Menik]

(no one...NO one has made the obligatory Michael Jackson joke yet?
Fine.)


If you're thinkin' 'bout bein' my message board, it don't matter if you're black or white.
HEE HEE OW!

 

[Olaf the Stout]

I'm a bit strange. I voted black for the front page but I think I would prefer white for the forums so I can browse them at work.

A return of the stealth skin from ENW1 would be my first preference though.

Olaf the Stout

 

[Angel Tarragon]

Skins is where its at. Failing that, white text on black background.

 

[spilth]

Skins = an account database entry, which turns the news page from a simple HTML page into a database driven page. The reason the fonrt page stears clear of the database is to try and igve people at least occasional access to the site!

Maybe when we have the new server, we can think about returning to a database based page, but for now, it's just a single page of HTML updated and periodically uploaded manually by me.

Which means no skins.

I don't know any details about how the site works, but have you considered/explored using server-side caching for your database-driven pages? When updating your news table, write out the results to a static HTML file.

 

[Thorfin]

I concur with Olaf concerning the Stealth choice of ENW1. Prior to my discovery of the skins option, Stealth in particular, I was only good for about 45 minutes of lurking before the eye/head aches began. I am a little surprised that others haven't mentioned the same problem... feeling quite gimpy right now actually.

But.... between the two options... white for me.

 

[Yalius]

Black text on a white background-- please!!

I'll even throw in a gratuitous reference--

http://sigs.aisnet.org/SIGHCI/bit04/BIT_Hall.pdf

A study backed by the University of Maryland that found that, even among those who expressed a preference for black backgrounds, a white background was rated more readable, more professional, and allowed greater retention of information.

Besides, don't the annoying afterimages of white text on a black background get on peoples' nerves? I literally have to look away every time I scroll up or down because of afterimages in my eyes; the black background just doesn't provide the necessary neutral reference and ambient stimulation.

Seriously, white on black is bad. B-A-D bad. Hard on the eyes, distracting, and definitely causes contrast and afterimage problems with scrolling and browsing to more (to be charitable) well-thought-out pages.

 

[DarkKestral]

Black text on a white background-- please!!

I'll even throw in a gratuitous reference--

http://sigs.aisnet.org/SIGHCI/bit04/BIT_Hall.pdf

A study backed by the University of Maryland that found that, even among those who expressed a preference for black backgrounds, a white background was rated more readable, more professional, and allowed greater retention of information.

Besides, don't the annoying afterimages of white text on a black background get on peoples' nerves? I literally have to look away every time I scroll up or down because of afterimages in my eyes; the black background just doesn't provide the necessary neutral reference and ambient stimulation.

Seriously, white on black is bad. B-A-D bad. Hard on the eyes, distracting, and definitely causes contrast and afterimage problems with scrolling and browsing to more (to be charitable) well-thought-out pages.

I've also seen studies (I'm searching as we speak) that claim it's also dependent on some outside variables. For me, I prefer white on black, as it causes me MUCH less eyestrain than black on white, particularly for long reading periods. However, I generally use my computers in lower light situations than might be found in many offices, (something I've noticed is common for some people favoring white on black, where the reduced environmental contrast helps prevent eyestrain) and in many cases with lighting of a slightly different color temp. I also use fairly bright monitors, so staring at white for long periods causes eyestrain from too much light, rather than the reverse.

And as far as contrast white on black is equally high contrast (for good or ill) as black on white.

However, one of the things noted to help readability (both in the case of white on black and black on white) is using a slightly "off" color for the background rather than the standard black or the standard white. Books are traditionally black on white, but usually the paper used is more of a cream color just as an artifact of imperfect bleaching, which reduces some of the contrast, incidentally helping prevent eyestrain. Another factor which helps readability of books is the small amounts of pure whitespace to cause contrast issues, so there's usually a fairly good mix of black and white, leaving a relatively "average" grey as the overall average tone of a page. On a sight like ENWorld, where at times there are large chunks of space not taken up by images or text, that doesn't apply, and it may vary from light to dark.

So, to really produce an optimal "white" for readability you aren't actually looking at white as a background. You're looking at a beige or a lighter grey. They're reasonably high contrast, but don't cause the same glare issues that some people have with light backgrounds. Likewise, an optimal black is in fact somewhere around a navy blue or a dark grey.

Furthermore, nearly all studies of this type have focused solely on readability of text in reflected or indirect light, not direct light as found in LCDs. So it's a little disingenuous to say that studies "prove" black on white is strictly better. There doesn't really appear to be many studies focused on direct-light readability in a variety of visual settings from low-light to bright-light.