White Text on a Black Background Hurts my Eyes

They have: 52 posts

Joined: Dec 2002

Am I the only person whose eyes hurt when trying to read white text on a black background?

(or on a red backround, etc)

Please...for the sake of my eyes...help!
Wink

02bunced's picture

He has: 412 posts

Joined: May 2005

No, you're not. White arial text on a black background is just about bearable, but uncomfortable. Times New Roman white on a black background is unbearable though, and I just leave the site!

Renegade's picture

He has: 3,022 posts

Joined: Oct 2002

Yeah... what you'll find though is that, people who do that are generally new to web design Smiling

I've been guilty of doing that myself in the early days...

Busy's picture

He has: 6,151 posts

Joined: May 2001

grey text on black isn't so bad

I've got a black/white site Laughing out loud (two actually) and one has red links on hover Wink both are popular(ish) sites but could do with being updated

Renegade's picture

He has: 3,022 posts

Joined: Oct 2002

Busy wrote: I've got a black/white site Laughing out loud (two actually) and one has red links on hover Wink both are popular(ish) sites but could do with being updated

Like I said, generally new to web design Sticking out tongue

Hehehe, just kidding Smiling

Roo's picture

She has: 840 posts

Joined: Apr 1999

Yes, white on black hurts if it's a lot of text. A few lines, or a menu I find okay. Gray on black isn't bad.

CptAwesome's picture

He has: 370 posts

Joined: Dec 2004

I've got a severe eyesight problem and because of the way my vision works, black text on white background kills me. If I am going to use a computer for longer than a couple hours, it almost has to have white text on black background.

I don't understand exactly how people can stand staring at what's basically a 17 or 19 inch lightbulb for hours on end.

So 90% of design I do for my own sites is white on black, or white on red, but light on dark, high contrast. In fact, the input box I type into right now is white on black, based on my windows settings and I highlight a lot of pages when they don't use proper contrast, which tends to be annoying. What's more annoying is when sites define input/text box background colours, but not font colours, so it's white on white for me.

I've heard people comment on how white on black hurts their eyes before, I (and my mom with the same eye disorder) are the opposite.

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