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Heard a designer say dark text on light backgrounds is always better...
I was at a coffee shop near my office last Tuesday and overheard two web designers talking. One said they always use dark text on white backgrounds because it's the only safe choice for accessibility. But I was just looking at a real estate site that used a deep navy blue background with a very light gray body text, and I could read it fine. Doesn't contrast depend on the specific colors and their brightness levels, not just dark versus light? Has anyone else found that some dark backgrounds with light text actually pass contrast checks better than some light backgrounds?
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logansullivan2d agoMost Upvoted
Did your friend try checking it with one of those contrast tools or just eyeball it?
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diana552d ago
Respectfully, that designer was wrong. Contrast is way more than just dark vs light. You can have a light tan background with medium gray text that fails contrast checks easy. Meanwhile a dark charcoal background with bright white text can pass with flying colors. It's all about the actual numbers, not some rule of thumb. Plenty of dark mode sites are totally readable. People get stuck on old rules and don't actually test things.
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