How very ‘knowledgeable’ you sound… not.
Damn that “old fashioned”, EASY TO READ black text. Let’s be ‘Web 2.0’ and make it as difficult to see as possible! It’s just SO cutting edge, don’t you know…
I think grey text on white background makes the text look a little more clearer and smooth, and not so sharp on the eyes.
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Yes, that damn easy to read black text… all those millions of books which use it are just so “sharp on the eyes”.
This is such tiresome ********, it’s almost unbearable to listen to. It’s like listening to a bunch of ‘audiophiles’ talk about the latest Dire Straits CD…
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Looks like the majority of people on here prefer grey on white. Looks like SP has made the right choice, and many other sites for that matter, including ours.
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Yes, I’m REALLY convinced.
Who cares what the people here think? ALL that matters is what the MAJORITY of visitors to a site think. Have you asked them? Did you bother giving them the CHOICE to choose the contrast? Of course not! That would have been too easy![/COLOR]
[COLOR=“Black”]Well said MrMr.
That is the problem in a nutshell - we have gone backwards (“we” meaning the millions of people who have to view badly designed websites every day because a handful of self important fools think that THEIR desires are more important than those of the majority who have to look at their creations…).
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Yes, that must be it. I “seemingly joined the board here to only comment on this thread”… Wow. I’ve been a member for all of ten hours and haven’t commented on any other threads yet! So I must be in the wrong!
As for “shouting”… and “have a preference for lower contrast”… Do you mean “preference for making life difficult for everybody else”?
“Either way, it doesn’t look good.”
Ad hominem fallacy…
I was just writing something on a WHITE piece of paper, and I noticed that my pen had BLACK ink. Try as I might, I couldn’t find any pens with GREY ink. Why do you think that is?[/COLOR]
Why did we spend more money on CRT monitors with higher contrast, and why did we adjust that contrast as much as possible, to make text easier to read?
This is really hard to believe, for somebody like me, that the very people who are supposed to be producing websites which are read, are so blind/stubborn/gullible/sheeplike that they will continue forcing this rubbish on the majority, who have to look at their personal preference every day.
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I guess that the majority of books DO have grey text on white pages. And that the majority of pens sold DO have grey ink, not black or dark blue…
Isn’t it odd that you can’t buy a single bottle of ink for a fountain pen which is GREY in colour? Why would that be?
Have you any idea how much less bright a totally white screen on your monitor is, compared to looking out of the window on a sunny day? Did you know that a sunny day is 2,000 times brighter than a moonlit night? Yet your eyes can see perfectly well in both.
Are any of you PayPal users? What do you think of their new ‘Web 2.0’ ‘Greyed-out-as-much-as-possible-so-it’s-almost-impossible-to-read’ e-mails?[/color]
[color=“Black”]Look at this piece of self indulgent idiocy:
Who cares if half the audience just click away from your site because they can’t be bothered trying to read your virtually invisible text? You’ve got your precious ego to defend!!!
And have you noticed that all of my posts are in black text? I expect that some of you ‘designers’ can’t even see the difference…
Ink is as good as jet black in the vast majority of books. Paper is normally 99% white. Yes, it isn’t a light source. Your monitor is, but hardly like a light bulb…
Even if paper is very white it is not an actual light source. But a monitor is. It makes a difference.
Staring at a monitor all day can get to feel like staring at a light bulb.
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Only if you have some sort of problem with reading in general. How bright is the rest of your room? Are you sitting in the dark? Do you get sore eyes when watching TV in a darkened room?
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My preferred site design: background slightly off-white, text slightly off-black (somebody mentioned charcoal - that’s the one). Also, serif fonts and extra leading. Perfect.
However, from what I understand to be the internet-selling common sense, these choices are all marketing sins - you will lose visitors and sales.
How very true. Still, none of the designers want to admit they are wrong, so to hell with the actual USERS of your sites!!!
dear ihategreytext, any chance you could let us know how you ~really~ feel?
look, it’s fine to have a rant, but one thing is very important, and i need to step in here as a moderator for a second
i’m not singling you out, i want to say this for anyone who happens to want to post in this thread, or even just who reads it –
respect for other members, and for their opinions, is one of the cornerstones of this forum (it’s right there in our guidelines)
at ~no~ time will we allow disrespectful remarks
please, everyone, step back from the keyboard, take a deep breath, and remember that it’s okay to disagree with the points that someone makes, but it’s not okay to disrespect the person making them
That is a classic example. They used to have a perfectly good design - it’s been the same for as long as I can remember them having a website (maybe 10 years?). Now they’ve got grey text in the product menu at the top of the page (whoop-e-do), and loads of unnecessary little icons/pictures which do nothing for the customer looking for information. What purpose do they serve?
But to give the designer his/her due, they do use BLACK TEXT throughout the product description. Maybe Scan actually listen to their customers…
It’s interesting, because the normal black text shows just how faded and irritating some of the other text is, such as the Scan Code, (both the phrase ‘Scan Code’ and the code itself, moreso)…
Perhaps the next time I’m reading a book, I should get it in large print, run a hot bath, and then put the book about five feet away from me so I can view that ‘coarse’ black text through a mist… then it would be lovely and [/color]GREY…
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I’m still looking for those grey pens, and some grey ink for my fountain pen. Anybody found some yet?
What has that got to do with what MILLIONS of website visitors want? I’ve already said what the designers like doesn’t matter.
Isn’t that grey ink on the National Portrait Gallery website?
Where are all the ballpoint pens with grey ink? Where are all the books with grey text?
Here are the before and after versions of the e-mails that PayPal send out - the grey text is so bad I thought I’d share them with you… (and yes, the layout is made with tables… massive amounts of unnecessary markup).
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The second one (the new version) has just about everything on it as unclear as possible, from the grey text to the tiny fonts, to the lack of headings in front of the Name, Username and E-mail address. Who coded this, and how did it get past management? And what idiot came up with the idea that the first version needed change? Is it ‘change’ for change’s sake?
Your right about the PayPal thing, that is too light.
Grey text is easier on the eyes but not that grey. I think you forget that everyone on this forum are not designers, and even if they are, they are all still human beings that make purchases on the internet so they are still consumers.
If you really want to make a bigger deal and find out what the “REAL” general public think, you should go and stand in the high streets with a clipboard and a laptop and ask people what they think!
And you talk about books and why they dont have grey text, the majority of books i have seen do not have have crystal clear bright white backgrounds that light up. The pages are somewhat dull white and therefore black text in a book is a completely different ball game to black text on a monitor.
And you talk about books and why they dont have grey text, the majority of books i have seen do not have have crystal clear bright white backgrounds that light up. The pages are somewhat dull white and therefore black text in a book is a completely different ball game to black text on a monitor.
[color=“Black”]No, it isn’t. If the white part of your monitor is brighter than the page of a book, then your iris will adjust accordingly - and having GREY text is just going to make the text harder to see. It does not help in any way. A normal book page, being read on a sunny day, in direct sunlight, is several TIMES brighter than any monitor.
Grey text is not easier to read. I just can’t believe how many of you keep parroting this ******** over and over again.
Why are there no books with grey text? If it’s so great. If it’s easier to read.
You are all parroting what each other says, because you think some ‘higher power’ has decreed it, and therefore it must be so.[/color]
I am not saying all this because someone has made me say it!
I am saying it because it is what I believe. And if the majority of websites are now doing it and the mojority of people here agree with it then surely your wrong and you just cant deal with it? Am i mistaken!?
If I wrote a book and everyone who read it thought it was crap, and I didnt sell any, and people kept telling me it was rubbish, do you know what i would do?
I would throw it in the bin and start again, I may think its great but obviously it is terrible. I think this is a similar scenario, I dont think you can accept the fact that you are one of very few people in the world that like black on white.
And im not really sure where you want to go with this thread, you seem as though you want to take it to the high court and get grey text banned forever!
What are you hoping to achieve from this thread? Apart from getting angry and having a heart attack?
Well this is the accessibility forum, and it seems to me that by definition it’s about how to cater to minority users with various disabilities. So the argument some seem to be making, namely that “it looks fine to me” seems to miss the whole point of the forum.
And the answer to your question is almost certainly “yes” since glaucoma and cataracts still exist among the user population, and if we are interested in making our sites accessible we should be catering to them.
What is your game. I mean honestly, what are you up to?
You have just created this account in the last 24 hours, and have only posted in this particular thread (28 times), parroting the same argument and whenever anyone counters or disputes you opinion, you ignore it.
You asked if anyone has books that aren’t black on white.
We responded yes we do.
You indicated that all pens are black and there was no grey pens available.
Immediately you were provided a link to grey pens… And what about blue pens?
You have said for the record that there is no such thing as dyslexia.
I’m not sure where you got your doctorate in cognitive science but I’m of the belief that some people do indeed suffer various degrees of dyslexia and there have been studies to back that up. Where’s your proof that it doesn’t.
You have stated that .001 percent of the world population design websites with grey text… I would expect it is lower however, what is your source for that statistic. You blow off people for not providing sources yet you don’t need to? As a matter of fact you have provided no proof of anything. Just because you are more belligerent than the rest of the people contributing to the conversation doesn’t make you right.
So… What’s your deal? You obviously haven’t joined to make a positive contribution here. Are you an alias for another member or are you trying to increase your posting numbers without providing any real value for some reason?
Take your time… I’ve got things to do but get back about this. I’m really interested in what you’re up to because you obviously aren’t here to make an positive contribution to the community or learn anything from those who have been here for a while.
If it’s purely #fff in the background then I’d say #333 and anything lighter is a little less readable, I would go with #111 or some hex between #111 and #000. If the background is a little grayer then something like #333 may suffice.
[color=“black”]And strangely enough, I received two PayPal payment notifications today, and they were both back in the old style! I expect a few hundred thousand people have been e-mailing PayPal to complain, and they actually changed it back. But no e-mail saying “We’re sorry we did it wrong” or anything like that - that would be too much.
