I think you should do some actual study before making claims like
> The difference, though, is that when you're reading a web page, you're effectively staring at a light bulb. So you really can have too much contrast.
Which sounds pretty darn sketchy to me. I don't think it's amount of contrast that is the problem here. That is, changing to a light yellow from a light grey, both at the same lightness (and therefore the same lightness contrast with the text), might change the readability, etc.
But in any case, so much depends on the specifics of the user's screen, the current room's lighting conditions, the variation between people, etc. My powerbook does not have nearly as powerful a backlight as a cinema display, and Cocoa Dev Central's text really does seem too light grey to read comfortably. And I find black on white among the most readable combinations, unless I'm in a completely black room, at which point I turn down the display brighness.
So it could be that your display is just turned up too bright for you to read comfortably. In which case your complaint isn't really about the websites.
I'd basically challenge you to not make generalized statements without more evidence than personal experience on one screen. There are surely scientific studies on this topic.
by Jacob Rus — Apr 27
> The difference, though, is that when you're reading a web page, you're effectively staring at a light bulb. So you really can have too much contrast.
Which sounds pretty darn sketchy to me. I don't think it's amount of contrast that is the problem here. That is, changing to a light yellow from a light grey, both at the same lightness (and therefore the same lightness contrast with the text), might change the readability, etc.
But in any case, so much depends on the specifics of the user's screen, the current room's lighting conditions, the variation between people, etc. My powerbook does not have nearly as powerful a backlight as a cinema display, and Cocoa Dev Central's text really does seem too light grey to read comfortably. And I find black on white among the most readable combinations, unless I'm in a completely black room, at which point I turn down the display brighness.
So it could be that your display is just turned up too bright for you to read comfortably. In which case your complaint isn't really about the websites.
I'd basically challenge you to not make generalized statements without more evidence than personal experience on one screen. There are surely scientific studies on this topic.