Introduction

Content is perhaps the single most important aspect of a web site.

Colors, Backgrounds and Contrast

Can you read this?

More than likely you'll have a hard time reading the text above. The fonts on your site should contrast enough with the background so that the user can easily read. Bright colors on a light background are never to be used in a web site.

Very bright colors flash at you, due to the fact that the monitor is actually flashing at a subliminal level, and therefore should not be used for background except in rare instances.

Dark colors on a darker background are very difficult. Dark colors on a light background usually turn out well.

Another contrast issue is the use of busy background images. Can you read the text below?

This text. This text. This link

The white text here shows up best because of contrast issues, but it still remains difficult to read. The blue text of the link disappears. The black almost disappears.

Background images can confuse a user's eye. They should be used sparingly and in high contrast to any text or images on the page.

The site webpagesthatsuck.com shows some particularly bad backgrounds to use, and this website has the worst background ever.

Web-safe Colors

Not every computer displays colors in the same way. Macs, PCs, and workstations all have different ways of interpreting and displaying colors. Therefore, if you want your page to look the same on all computers, you must limit the palette of colors that you use.

There are 216 "web-safe" colors that will show the same on every system.

Color Table --This link has a table of web-safe colors.