Readability and Backgrounds
If it's hard to read, why bother?
Opinion page by Duane Alan Hahn.
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Page Table of Contents
Most people who visit this page come here to use the Color Finder Tool below. If you haven't tried it yet, check it out. I use it even more than I thought I would. It's very useful.
Color Finder Tool for Webmasters
About the Color Finder Tool
This is a tool to help you find text and background colors as quickly and easily as possible. It's based on the Colour Contrast Check Tool by Jonathan Snook (used with permission). His tool is great, but I don't need the compliance test and I'd rather have the text/background result at the top.
You can use the sliders or you can type in or paste a six-digit color code into the box and hit the Enter key. This tool is useful for finding that perfect text, link, or visited link color by seeing the text change color right in front of your eyes in real time.
Web sites are used to communicate with others, but if most people have a hard time reading your text, what's the point of having a web site? Some web sites have dark blue or dark purple text on a black background. I've even seen blue backgrounds with blue text on top that's only a shade different. I don't think these people even look at their own web sites, and if they don't, why should anyone else?
Most people who understand even a little about color know they should not use red text on a blue background ( hard to read ), or blue text on a red background ( hard to read ) because the normal human eye, with normal lenses, cannot focus on certain shades of red and blue at the same time. The text seems to vibrate which causes eye strain. You can read about that in any old World Book Encyclopedia, but you will still see red on blue or blue on red at some web sites. Although the combination of red and blue seems to be the most infamous, you'll notice that red on gray can be just as bad, and those probably aren't the only eye-abusing color combinations.
There are many poor color combinations, but if you actually look at your text, don't just know what the text says in your mind because you wrote it, but actually look at how the text looks against the background, you can avoid most newbie mistakes. If you find yourself using color combinations such as the ones in the Bad Examples list on this page, smack yourself in the back of the head with a rubber chicken and promise to never do it again.
Some web sites have busy backgrounds and that makes the text hard to read. It would be understandable if those sites were all owned by newbies, but you'll see that kind of thing from people who have owned a web site for many years. It's even more amazing when you see busy backgrounds on small business sites. I thought the reason for having a business web site was to sell products, not to annoy visitors.
If you feel that you absolutely must use a busy background (or you'll just die), there is a simple compromise. If you use tables or divs, you could display your text in a plain white box with your background surrounding it. Here's an example:
You can use a crazy background and still allow people to read your text.
People will still get to see your extraordinary, miraculous, earthshaking, life changing background image, but they will also be able to read your text without blood squirting from their eyes.
Some companies think it's cool to use their logo as the background and even if they're smart enough to fade the image until it's almost invisible, it can still be distracting and irritating. It's especially annoying when that logo has been turned into a static background. Ever see those? The image is always there in your way as you scroll up and down the page. Horribly evil and evidence of someone doing something they think is 'cool' without even considering how irritating it might be to potential customers. It would look more professional to just have the company logo at the top of each page and use a plain color, such as white, for the background.
Avoid Black Backgrounds
A prickly personal opinion.
Using a black background doesn't make you look evil, mysterious, or uniquely artistic and it doesn't prove that you are a dark, brooding loner. You might want to use a black background because you are going for the 'retro' look. That's not a horrible reason, but it still doesn't change the fact that black backgrounds are horrible. Just because some ancient monitors had light text on a dark background or some old game had a black background doesn't mean that you must have a black background behind your text. For example, Space Invaders didn't have page after page of text to read on that black background. You were shooting aliens, not reading Moby Dick. Why not have a black background with something like black text on white in the middle? Here's an example:
Imagine that. A retro black background with black text on white. What will they think of next?
For some reason, many people who have modern game related sites also think it's cool to have a black background (especially teens and people from the UK). I don't know why. Maybe it makes them feel all dark and naughty? Maybe they're subconsciously saying, "Look at me, Daddy! I'm Batman! I'm Batman!"
Text of any color on a black background is hard to read for people who have astigmatism, so reciting some old study that says dark green text on a black background is the best for everybody is silly. I and everyone I know must have astigmatism because I've tried every major color combination I could think of, and black text on a white background always wins (except for people who have their brightness or contrast turned up too high). A black background behind light text makes my eyes feel like they are being sucked out of their sockets and it can mess up my vision for several minutes. Trying to read text on a black background does not give my eyes more comfort, it hurts them. Here's a related quote:
"People with astigmatism (approximately 50% of the population) find it harder to read white text on black than black text on white. Part of this has to do with light levels: with a bright display (white background) the iris closes a bit more, decreasing the effect of the "deformed" lens; with a dark display (black background) the iris opens to receive more light and the deformation of the lens creates a much fuzzier focus at the eye."
Jason Harrison – Post Doctoral Fellow, Imager Lab Manager – Sensory Perception and Interaction Research Group, University of British Columbia
One good solution is to let visitors pick the text and background colors they want to use, but not all web sites are able to do that.
Did you know that Trump's rushed experimental rona jab has less than one percent overall benefit? It also has many possible horrible side effects. Some brainwashed rona jab cultists claim that there are no victims of the jab, but person after person will post what the jab did to them, a friend, or a family member on web sites such as Facebook and Twitter and they'll be lucky if they don't get banned soon after. Posting the truth is “misinformation” don't you know. Awakened sheep might turn into lions, so powerful people will do just about anything to keep the sheep from waking up.
Check out these videos:
What is causing the mysterious self-assembling non-organic clots?
If You Got the COVID Shot and Aren't Injured, This May Be Why
Take a look at my page called The H Word and Beyond. You might also want to look at my page called Zinc and Quercetin. My sister and I have been taking those two supplements since summer of 2020 in the hopes that they would scare away the flu and other viruses (or at least make them less severe).
Some people appear to have a mental illness because they have a vitamin B deficiency. For example, the wife of a guy I used to chat with online had severe mood swings which seemed to be caused by food allergies or intolerances. She would became irrational, obnoxious, throw tantrums, and generally act like she had a mental illness. The horrid behavior stopped after she started taking a vitamin B complex. I've been taking Jarrow B-Right (#ad) for many years. It makes me much easier to live with.
Unfermented soy is bad! “When she stopped eating soy, the mental problems went away.” Fermented soy doesn't bother me, but the various versions of unfermented soy (soy flour, soybean oil, and so on) that are used in all kinds of products these days causes a negative mental health reaction in me that a vitamin B complex can't tame. The sinister encroachment of soy has made the careful reading of ingredients a necessity.
If you are overweight, have type II diabetes, or are worried about the condition of your heart, check out the videos by Ken D Berry, William Davis, and Ivor Cummins. It seems that most people should avoid wheat, not just those who have a wheat allergy or celiac disease. Check out these books: Undoctored (#ad), Wheat Belly (#ad), and Eat Rich, Live Long (#ad).
Negative ions are good for us. You might want to avoid positive ion generators and ozone generators. A plain old air cleaner is better than nothing, but one that produces negative ions makes the air in a room fresher and easier for me to breathe. It also helps to brighten my mood.
Never litter. Toss it in the trash or take it home. Do not throw it on the ground. Also remember that good people clean up after themselves at home, out in public, at a campsite and so on. Leave it better than you found it.
Climate Change Cash Grab = Bad
Seems like more people than ever finally care about water, land, and air pollution, but the climate change cash grab scam is designed to put more of your money into the bank accounts of greedy politicians. Those power-hungry schemers try to trick us with bad data and lies about overpopulation while pretending to be caring do-gooders. Trying to eliminate pollution is a good thing, but the carbon footprint of the average law-abiding human right now is actually making the planet greener instead of killing it.
Eliminating farms and ranches, eating bugs, getting locked down in 15-minute cities, owning nothing, using digital currency (with expiration dates) that is tied to your social credit score, and paying higher taxes will not make things better and “save the Earth.” All that stuff is part of an agenda that has nothing to do with making the world a better place for the average person. It's all about control, depopulation, and making things better for the ultra-rich. They just want enough peasants left alive to keep things running smoothly.
Watch these two YouTube videos for more information:
Charlie Robinson had some good advice about waking up normies (see the link to the video below). He said instead of verbally unloading or being nasty or acting like a bully, ask the person a question. Being nice and asking a question will help the person actually think about the subject.
Interesting videos:
Charlie Robinson Talks About the Best Way to Wake Up Normies
Disclaimer
View this page and any external web sites at your own risk. I am not responsible for any possible spiritual, emotional, physical, financial or any other damage to you, your friends, family, ancestors, or descendants in the past, present, or future, living or dead, in this dimension or any other.
Don't really smack yourself in the back of the head with a rubber chicken. If you do smack yourself in the back of the head with a rubber chicken, I am not responsible for any brain damage you might receive. If you repeatedly smack yourself in the back of the head with a rubber chicken and you get a bald spot, that's also your own fault. I will not pay for your Rogaine treatments.