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

[verb3k]

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

(or at least most websites)

[Bölvaður]

Perhaps they are trying to be like books.. books have white background and black text.

[OrangeCrate]

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

(or at least most websites)

Because they're easier to read.

:)

[Grant A.]

Some white ttf fonts render poorly in black or colored backgrounds.

[Nevon]

Most well designed websites don't use black on white or white on black. They use different shades in between. Sometimes a lighter color on a darker background, and sometimes the opposite.

[BuffaloX]

I think there were studies back in the 80's showing that white on black actually is less stressful for long work hours, but it seems most people prefer it the other way round, probably because of old habit from paper/ink, so white on black "feels" like a negative.

[Namtabmai]

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.

[Nevon]

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.

I don't know if you're serious or not. But if you are; ... no?

[dr.silly]

I think it puts less strain on your eyes but thats just what i heard

[diablo75]

I think a white background with black text looks more "positive" (positive meaning pure; as opposed to dark, which looks more "negative"). Although I do prefer to use a dark interface with Ubuntu so I have white text with a darker background... just to shake things up I guess. Besides, it looks cooler.

[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:
http://www.kenpo-texas.com/blk_and_wht_dot.gif 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.

[Paqman]

The web is such a new medium that the conventions aren't set. A lot of people who design for the web come from a print design background, where black on white is the norm for obvious reasons.

The general principle is to have high contrast between text and page. White on black is considered acceptable to most designers, although it's a less traditional choice.

Basically it's a design decision. There's no really hard data on whether it's a usability issue AFAIK. I use white on black for my personal website because I think it suits the design. But every other site i've done is black on white.

[jimv]

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

(or at least most websites)

It takes less eInk.

[spupy]

I've heard that green text on yellow bg is best.
http://metalinkltd.com/?p=91
Not so straining yet easy to read.
Also, I prefer dark desktops, the white burns my eyes after a day of work.

[missbliss]

I can't stand white on black. It seems like it's opposite of what it shoudl be. (porbably just from growing up that way). But it really does bother my eyes.


When they originally made books or started printing things, it probably just made sense to leave the paper white and print on it with black ink. Why in the world would they ink the entire paper then try and print with white ink???


I'm just saying: it's obvious why the trend began. Why it's still here is probably b/c it's what people are used to.

[Thirtysixway]

I like having a dark background, but then having a brighter background for the content (like the brown vs the white on the ubuntu forums) it gives it a nice contrast and really draws you to where the content is.

I prefer dark wallpapers though.

[init1]

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.
According to google, that wouldn't work.
http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2007/08/is-black-new-green.html

[kavon89]

I've heard that green text on yellow bg is best.
http://metalinkltd.com/?p=91
Not so straining yet easy to read.
Also, I prefer dark desktops, the white burns my eyes after a day of work.

A green & yellow theme is probably a nightmare for color-blind people.

[Firestem4]

I dont think it occured specifically for that reason but the rods in our eyes vastly outnumber the cones, therefor our eyes detect black/white much easier than color. And since we have so many rods, we aren't using the limited amount of cones to detect the colors (black and white). - rods aren't just for night vision.

[subzero22]

I think it puts less strain on your eyes but thats just what i heard

For me it's the opposite I like darker backgrounds to read stuff. Wich is probebly why I have my website with a black background.

http://www.jokemaster.org if you want to check it out. black background with light-blue text.

After I get my linux back to the way I want it I'm going to majorly redesign it but I'm keeping the same color.

For me at least it makes it a lot easier to read but once I get this redesign people can choose their own color design.

[DownTown22]

Why are all websites black on white?
Probably because that's what most people are used to - from reading books, miscellaneous stuff on paper, MS Office does it that way.
Although, if I'm staring at my computer screen all day, that much white really does a number on my eyeballs.
I've also noticed that a lot of people (that I know) who use their computers all day for drafting and related programs (AutoCAD, GEMCOM, Discover3D, etc) have the backgrounds in those programs set as black. In fact, I think AutoCAD comes default as a black background - I could very well be wrong though.

[wmcbrine]

There are some sites out there that are white on black, or some other light-on-dark scheme. I find them very unpleasant and eyestraining to read. This, despite the fact that I grew up with white on black (or green on black, or amber on black) text terminals. On the other hand, I also grew up with black-on-white displays on Sinclair computers -- probably the first time I realized it was nicer. My TRS-80 CoCo was black on green, also pretty legible, if only it had had lowercase letters.

Anyway, apart from outliers like those, light on dark was pretty much the standard, until the first Macintosh came along. They didn't muck about with amber or green, either -- just black on white. Windows followed the Mac standard, and no one's looked back since.

Of course one difference is that those old terminals were limited to 80x25 characters, or similar sizes, while modern GUIs tend to cram in a lot more text. I think dark on light is probably better at any resolution, but light on dark gets particularly hard to read as the text gets smaller.

[wolfen69]

i find white on black to be easiest on my eyes. i wish i could find the firefox script to make ubuntuforums white on black. anyone know what happened to it?

[Laibcoms]

The human eye naturally goes for whatever's brightest. For example:
http://www.kenpo-texas.com/blk_and_wht_dot.gif I find myself focusing on the white dot instead of the black dot. What about you?



I find myself focusing on the black dot instead of the white dot :p seriously, the on the right is the first thing I looked at.

Here's a tip, post a similar pic, but reverse it. White background instead of black background.

[wolfen69]

to each their own, but i find websites with a black background most pleasing.

[MaxIBoy]

i find white on black to be easiest on my eyes. i wish i could find the firefox script to make ubuntuforums white on black. anyone know what happened to it?
http://lifehacker.com/software/lifehacker-code/invert-web-page-colors-with-the-darken-bookmarklet-259456.php

[Foster Grant]

Because they're easier to read.

:)

Winner, winner, chicken dinner.

One site I no longer frequent has a Matrix-like black-background/lime-green text combination. You would think it would be cool, but ... it's not. Hard to read.

[zakany]

http://lifehacker.com/software/lifehacker-code/invert-web-page-colors-with-the-darken-bookmarklet-259456.php

Notice how terrible the blue links look on a black background?

[swoll1980]

I thought we were past this whole black, and white issue. Can't we all just get along.

[BuffaloX]

I thought we were past this whole black, and white issue. Can't we all just get along.

White on black or black on white, seems to me that either way they get along just fine. :P

[verb3k]

Why are all websites black on white?
Probably because that's what most people are used to

Still no hard evidence that this is the reason.

[SomeGuyDude]

I can't handle white-on-black for extended periods of time. Eyes just don't like it at all.

[Peasantoid]

White on black usually looks ugly to me, especially since font blending doesn't work so well. Dark Ubuntu themes are nice though. :)

Anyway, I tend to prefer dark gray on light gray.

[richardh9936]

Oh please! I've been fighting this battle for thirty years. I could read blackboards easily, and green-screens were bliss, but all this white background is just much too hard to accept.

We have "black on white" screens only because Apple thought that they should emulate paper. We have black ink only because the earliest humans found they could make marks with charcoal. More early humans made charcoal than lived near chalk cliffs. Therefore ink is black.

Now, why are modern screens "black on white"? Because LCDs can't produce good black backgrounds.

Good web pages like SONY onced use wonderful colours, BUT someone had them change.

If, like me, you need "white on black", then use COMPIZ option "negative" to invert the screen. If you use that other W** os, then buy "powerstrip" by Entech-taiwan, which calculates a negative gamma ramp really well.

[richardh9936]

...And furthermore,
Web pages vary so much that I need a soft-switch to go between negative and positive. Compiz and Entech's powerstrip do that.

...and lastly, how many photons do you need to read a letter? If it's "white on black", then you only need a few dozen. If it's "black on white", then you GET millions, and then have to differentiate until you can work out the shape of the shadow. (I mean, it's easier to read a light than a shadow.)

[Bios Element]

Still no hard evidence that this is the reason.

Just because you refuse to read the hard evidence given to you doesn't mean that there is a lack of it.

[CharmyBee]

There used to be an age where you would only get white-on-black sites for everything that isn't depthful information. It was called the '90s. Since 1997 it's been reversing with hipster sans-serif fonts (the Verdana explosion). It also had the most unfortunate font selection at the time too (COMIC SANS ANYONE!?!)

To me it's even worse when applications can't support white-on-black desktop schemes, especially websites that override the text color to black in edit boxes with a black background. There's also that Adobe Photoshop thing which also had black text...didn't go well either.

White-on-black is very relaxing on sinus and migrane headaches (together with the brightness turned down to 75%). I honestly can not say the same for black-on-white.

[swoll1980]

Why don't they make paper black, and ink white?

[CharmyBee]

Why don't they make paper black, and ink white?

It's probably all out of habit with ink being more feasibly producible than colored paint in a long time ago in history, and it stuck. Printers don't splash on paint either.

[zenithdave]

My eyes can't stand LCD white on black but i loved the green on black crt i don't have a clue why?

[SomeGuyDude]

I love how many people are acting like their preference for white-on-black is objective evidence of something.

Here's an idea: forget for the moment that we're all computer geeks that look at our computer screens at 3am and see what happens when you're sitting in a room with an open window and the sun shining and you're trying to read white on black. It's damn near impossible.

When my sleep schedule had me getting home from work at 4:30am and waking up at noon-ish, I used dark themes because I was in a dark room. Then I'd go to class and suddenly my Neutronium Deepblack theme was ridiculously hard to read.

[lethalfang]

I set my browser's background to black and text to some lighter color. I think this is easier on my eyes. Staring into a white LCD is like staring into a light bulb.

[juancarlospaco]

Greenpeace is black on white, so Greenpeace are anti-Greenpeace.

[gn2]

Why do all websites use black on white ~

Because it looks far better and is much easier to read.

[wolfen69]

Because they're easier to read.

:)

i find white on black easier.

[wolfen69]

I set my browser's background to black and text to some lighter color. I think this is easier on my eyes. Staring into a white LCD is like staring into a light bulb.

agreed.

btw, how do you set the browser background to black?

[collinp]

For me, white on black looks horrid and is a pain to read compared to black on white. That may be just me, though.

[lisati]

I find white-on-black easier to read than black-on-white. For some CLI stuff, I find bright-white-on-blue easier.

[0per4t0r]

My site has a black background, and red text. It just looks cool.