Does anyone have any thoughts on background colours for websites?

jerry12953

jerry12953

Messages
11,798
Name
Jeremy Moore
Edit My Images
No
My old/current site is dark gray and for my new site I was thinking of being a bit radical and choosing two shades of dark grey (cough.....)

But I've got a bit of a thing about white, maybe not a pure bright white but you know...... off-white......

Does anyone have any thoughts on this?
 
I like white, but I'm a plain Jane who likes clean and simple!!
 
Photos generally look better or at least different on dark neutral shades if not black.
Text can be hard to read if it's not more or less black on a pale shade (if not white)
 
Another vote for white with black for the text. There's a lot to be said for simple and efficient.
 
Browsers are now starting to support dark mode, so you could go with both...
 
Jacob Neilsen and the Neilsen Usability group give some good advice on this sort of thing for web
 
The background is just that - background. The colour used should be unobtrusive and basically invisible. If the user notices the colour of the background, you have the wrong one.
 
jerry12953 said:
My old/current site is dark gray and for my new site I was thinking of being a bit radical and choosing two shades of dark grey (cough.....)

But I've got a bit of a thing about white, maybe not a pure bright white but you know...... off-white......

Does anyone have any thoughts on this?
Click to expand...

Just make sure you understand you should not discriminated against people who have poor eyesight and are not very good at the contrast between the fonts and the background. Don't use colours that makes it harder for them to read, like for example a bright green background with yellow fonts and such, make sure the background you chose allows any text and images to be seen easily for people with poor eyesight.

Maybe the other way round? Black background with white fonts, I believe they're much easier for people with poor eyesight than white background with black fonts. Plus nowadays most people (even those with good eyesight) are likely to be staying up late at night surfing the Internet, so a bright white background may be a bad idea.

Maybe black background with white fonts, but it is your website, so up to you.
 
I vote white - I used to have a black background with white text but it made my eyes go odd. I think white backgrounds work well for photography especially if you're selling prints which will be printed on white paper...
 
ecoleman said:
White. Clean, crisp and modern.

I hate, and will avoid websites with black backgrounds. It's makes my eyes go funny.
Click to expand...
Agree on that one. Any extreme contrast is harsh as a reader, prefer something less aggressive to the eye.
 
I've more or less made the decision now to go with a pale grey and a very pale grey.

I have processed an image that i can use as a background for certain pages which fits very nicely with that not too challenging colour scheme........
 

Attachments

  • _04A2385-3.jpg
    _04A2385-3.jpg
    82.7 KB · Views: 12
Dark text on a pale background for text rich pages and a neutral (or complementary) colour behind images.
 
Grey, black or white. Simples.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top