Suitable contrast between foreground and background is important to ensure that the text on your website is easy to read.
Contrast and colour
W3C Web Content Accessibility Guidlines (1.0) stipulate that in presenting content we should:
“Ensure that foreground and background color combinations provide sufficient contrast when viewed by someone having color deficits or when viewed on a black and white screen.’
This means that dark text should be used on a light background, and light text should be used if the background is a dark colour.
A dark grey or dark shade of another colour tends to be more visually appealing than black text on a white background.
Light backgrounds versus dark backgrounds
Many usability “gurus” state that light backgrounds should be used because they make it easier to read content. Hall & Hanna found that when this claim could not be proven by empirical evidence. Using an experiment that measured the retention of information from a set text, they found that the colour of the background made no significant difference to the readability of the text.
The paper points out that in the tests conducted, a larger portion of the sample population perceived a web page to be more “professional looking” when it consisted of dark text on a light background.
Hall & Hanna, Web Text Background Colour
Example of light text on a dark background
www.boheem.com.au
Example of dark text on a light background
www.heartfoundation.org.au/Healthy_Living/Pages/default.aspx