23rd World

Cleverly titled Dark Side of the Blog, Centripetal Forces writes on the topic of dark backgrounds coming back into vogue. Whether or not dark to black backgrounds are as usable as very light or white backgrounds is simply not subjective.¹ Whether or not people like them is. While I would agree that black background sites can be done reasonably well, but they’re never going to be as easy to read. I often skip reading blogs (unless they have full post feeds) with dark backgrounds simply because I don’t feel like squinting. Design Observer comes to mind. I, myself, have designed sites with black backgrounds at the owner’s behest.

1. According to Research-Based Web Design & Usability Guidelines, a report by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, when compared to reading light text on a dark background, people read black text on a white background up to 32 percent faster. In general, the greater the contrast between the text and background, the easier the text is to read. Study after study supports this finding.