Warning: this is a pet peave and I’m going to rant. Hopefully this will help someone make their blog readable.I just looked at a blog… white text on a crimson background. I couldn’t read it. And the little I did read I didn’t retain. Why? because my eyes hurt as I was reading the page. I forced myself to read the post, while my eyes and my brain were struggling against me, trying to get me to stop reading. Two conflicting messages in my brain at the same time. The one that won out was “do not read this”. So I retained nothing about the post.Don’t get me wrong the blog was beautiful to look at … But completely unreadable for me.I’m sure the author of the blog had wonderful points to express to me, and has put a lot of time and effort into her blog. But the text and background color ruined all of her hard work .

I know exactly what you mean Amy! However white text done properly, EG. on a solid black background can work very well.

In general, I don’t think many people test what they’ve done to see what it’s like for the reader. TEST, TEST, TEST. That’s my motto!

Slightly off subject but relevant, I’m truly shocked, how many people on here have incomplete Profiles & or links that go nowhere.

As a matter of interest, did you let the lady know about how you felt about her blog?

Take care, Annie

I think you are quite correct, be sensitive to the reaction as you get a first glimpse.., and then somehow, get an idea as to what the public feels when they hit that page.. how you would gauge the public reaction and receptivity would be interesting to know…

At this stage of my internet exposure… I am reading pages to learn about as much as I can… and the colors on a page certainly influence the amount of times I will re read an article.

I really like the pages on this forum….., for me it is really easy to read and yet the page has a lot of color, but the content, the part that I focus on, is plain black on white.

@nicolette-roux another ‘vote’ for first impression….. I wonder if there could be a poll conducted (or has been conducted) as to how the general public reacts to page color. I have been looking on the web this afternoon and found many excellent design/color match resources, but none that said what the market favors.

When all is said and done I always refer to the tried and tested. Google the number most visited website in the world has a simple white background and a simple layout. True its a search engine page, but as you look at all their other websites you see a similar pattern.  White backgrounds work and are the most legible, why do you think 99% of books have white at the back of the text and not any other color? Good Rant  @amyhallbiz

I agree that the text has to be easy to read, otherwise you’ll lose your audience.  I was working on a project with my husband, looking up libraries in the Pittsburgh area.  Some of the websites were so horrible because of the colors they chose, like red text on a bright yellow background.  Ugh!!

I ran into another one yesterday! The lady hired me to add MailChimp to her site, but said during our conversation that she wasn’t having any luck with people sticking around to read her website! It was black with white text and neon green accents! I could hardly stand to look at it, it hurt my eyes so bad. Unfortunately this was a brand new website and she was needing a whole new redesign.

well, in this I’m the opposite, white background and black letters hurts my eyes after a few hours, I read a lot in my computer, mostly at night, and it hurts my eyes so bad! My favorite website so far is one that let you choose the background! I love it, you choose between white and dark grey. I love the dark grey background, perfect for reading for a long time without my eyes hurting too much.