Why all websites use black on white and not white on black?

[theDaveTheRave]

White on Black, black on white??

There have been many studies, but I can't quote them off the top of my head!

I seem to recall that the colour that they decided was "least stressfull" was actually white on blue (or "cloud on sky"), closely followed by orange on black ("egg on ****")or amber on black ("**** on ****") and then either white on black(you guessed it "cloud on ****") or black on white (bogg standard).

Personally if you have a web site that has red on silver, I aint going to hang around long as it makes my eyesigt go very strange after a few minutes

I seem to recall that for OHP presentations they are now going away from the idea of having a "white" background to something more "neutral" in hue (I normally go for a pale blue colour). And the current set of "electronic books" tend to have a "non white" background, that is in fact more of a creamy paper colour.

The whole point is that nowadays you can change the settings to anything you fancy, but can't change the background colour of websites! That is out of your control

[hessiess]

Personally I find black on white verry difficult to read, and hard on the eyes, thank god for stylish!

but can't change the background colour of websites! That is out of your control.

Yes you can: stylish, gresemonkey etc

[HavocXphere]

Suits me just fine.

If I'm tired and read a white on black site for 2h+ then I feel like I need a new set of eyes.

[kavon89]

Because it requires less pixels to make black text on a white background than white text on a black background, meaning there's less pixels to send and the page loads faster.

Pixel information is never sent over the internet. Information (such as text, image files, formatting code etc) is sent and your web browser figures out how to render the page, then your video drivers translate it and tells your monitor which pixels to change to what colors.


I think web pages have remained tied to the old style of book pages having a lighter background and a dark color for text. I read somewhere that if a majority of web sites changed to a black or dark theme (like Google), a lot of power would be saved world wide. However, black web pages give a dark and gloomy impression.

[hessiess]

I read somewhere that if a majority of web sites changed to a black or dark theme (like Google), a lot of power would be saved world wide. However, black web pages give a dark and gloomy impression.

While its true that CRT monitors use more power to display white, LCD displays use about the same, or more power to display black.

[tom66]

While LCDs do use a tiny bit less energy displaying black than white, you're talking about the power used to drive a MOSFET, which is insignificant. The backlight is the energy drain. Turning down the brightness on the backlight will preserve backlight life, and, if on a laptop, save battery.

[Sashin]

No, Black sites are cool.

Look at my old site for example:

http://www.pokemonrandom.com
and
http://forums.pokemonrandom.com

[MaxIBoy]

Because they're easier to read.

The human eye naturally goes for whatever's brightest. For example:
I find myself focusing on the white dot instead of the black dot. What about you?

See the attachment for more proof. The difference is especially easy to notice when you've been in front of the screen for a while and your eyes are starting to go. It's like your eyes have suddenly lain down on a nice, comfortable sofa after mowing the lawn all afternoon.


This is because of the biology of the eyes. (If you don't believe me, look it up. The notes I took in Science class that day are unusually good, by my standards.) A photoreceptor uses pigment to generate electricity from light. It takes fairly little light to use up the pigment in a photoreceptor (once it's used up, the cell is "bleached.") It must them be regenerated by the cell. If you look at a blindingly bright light, the little afterimage is a patch of bleached photoreceptors.

To prevent unneeded bleaching and cellular damage, your pupils contract. This takes muscular effort. For a comparison, try sitting down on a chair without a footrest and holding one leg out in front of you for a while. It eventually starts to hurt.

With dark backgrounds, the total amount of incoming light is less. So not only do you get less bleaching, your pupils can relax a little.


Light text with black backgrounds gets a bad reputation due to some webpages, which have thick, bold text on black. That's bad, because it doesn't stop your pupils from contracting, and leaves little afterimages in exacty all the places where the lines of text are. As a result, the image looks blurred, and you wind up squinting to focus, which makes it hard to read.

Green on black with a open, "Gothic" style font is the most readable.

[OrangeCrate]

<snip>
What about you?
<snip>

I prefer the black spot on the white background.

[Barrucadu]

I find that reading black-on-white things hurts my eyes after a while, so I frequently use the Compiz negative filter while web browsing, reading PDFs, et cetera.