Max Kiesler - Web Design, SOMA San Franciso

Low Contrast Websites, Bad Kitty!

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Monday, August 22, 2005

Have you ever gone to a website from your favorite search engine looking for some information you need only to find it, and the text is unreadable? Low contrast websites have gone from the realm of art and design sites to the mainstream at an alarming rate.

As a web designer for nine years, I have seen many web design trends take off and die. I’m hoping low contrast design takes the latter path. As a designer, I never thought I would go the way of Nielsen, but readers do go to websites for the content. If they cannot read it, they will leave. Or worse yet, they have to copy the content from your webpage and paste it into a text editor so they can read it.

This construct is particularly prevalent in tableless CSS websites. My guess is this is due to Zeldman’s last redesign. He was one of the first that wrote about his low contrast design. His low contrast model worked because he had a prominent link to a style switcher for a high contrast view of the entire site. Many less experienced designers miss this simple trick which makes the site readable.

While every web designer may not have access to different platforms and browsers, they should realize that the website they see on their monitor may not be the same view that everyone has. If your design looks low contrast on your monitor, it may be unreadable on a laptop.

Fortunately, many of the best web designers are now into the new movement of large readable text. Sites like Blogger designed by Douglas Bowman and 37 Signals designed Jason Fried are two excellent examples of high contrast readable websites.

If you’re website, or a site your designing for a client contains content : ) please make it readable.

[Technorati tags: web design, website+optimization, css]

Comments on this post

Harry Maugans  on  05/28  at  08:36 PM

Douglas Bowman is one of my all-time favorite designers.  The stopdesign site alone is beautiful.