Is it normal to stare at a bright, shining object when reading extensively? With the advent of low- or no-light paper-emulating reading and note-taking tools, the answer is “obviously not”. However, digital media continues to default to the browser’s classic black-on-white, #000000-#FFFFFF.
This is the default, meaning many applications just go with it. Without any styling, any webpage will appear as plain black text on a stark white background. This has only grown more awkward with enhancements in PC screen resolution. My first PC screen was a CRT with a resolution of 800×600. These days, I use 2k and 4k flat-screen monitors, and them being filled with the background design gap of white in the average website’s full-screen mode isn’t exactly pleasant.
When you look at computer terminals and various command prompts, such as DOS, these are usually white text on a black or dark background. The computers they programmed the moon launch with were like this, with their full-screen coding applications. Otherwise, the programmers would most certainly get exhausted. So, why did things flip? Some people find white text on dark backgrounds difficult to read (and in print, this is certainly true), but lately I find the bright white backgrounds of most digital media to be giving or even triggering headaches. They can definitely exacerbate migraines. Just ask me about it.
That’s why I’m thankful for “Dark Mode”, which has become a system-wide setting for many digital tools. But that’s not far enough, in my opinion. As long as people are staring at full-brightness white applications during concerts or movies, it will continue to be a nuisance to see the default that some programmer most certainly established unilaterally decades ago.
I have no solution for this; I only urge people to lean on white less. Maybe default their website to a nice aged sepia, papyrus-type paper color? Maybe a light-toned gray, which I find acceptable? We got everyone to flip from graphically fleshed-out, fully-designed presentations with visual depth to flat, color-blocked “material theme” style pretty easily, so maybe some big organization needs to set this suggested shift in motion socially speaking.
Anyway, that’s why this website doesn’t have a light background, and likely never will. I am planning a redesign at some point to make things easier to read and improve accessibility, though. When I have time. (And style-wise, I no longer look like my current header image…)
Leave a Reply