"Code Sandwiches"

[Nick Sabalausky]

"David Nadlinger" <see at klickverbot.at> wrote in message 
news:ilgjnj$1oui$1 at digitalmars.com...
> On 3/11/11 11:17 PM, Jonathan M Davis wrote:
>> On Friday, March 11, 2011 11:18:59 David Nadlinger wrote:
>>> My question from above still remains: Is there any scientific data to
>>> back this assumption?
>>
>> I don't know. I haven't gone looking. However, I know that there's lots 
>> of
>> anecdotal evidence for it. There's probably experimental evidence as 
>> well, but I
>> haven't gone looking for it.
>
> The reason I'm asking is that while I can understand that you might 
> personally prefer light text on dark backgrounds, I don't think that this 
> can be generalized so easily.
>

That may be a very fair point.

> I don't know of any research specifically studying eyestrain, but there 
> are results indicating that *black-on-white* text is significantly easier 
> to read, e.g. Hall and Hanna (2004) [1] or Bucher and Baumgartner (2007) 
> [2].
>
> Also, while I don't want to doubt that you know lots of anecdotal evidence 
> favoring light-on-dark text, I think there is probably more for the 
> opposite: Just look at the standard text settings of most widely used 
> OS/DEs out there, or at the color scheme of the most frequented web sites, 
> etc.
>
> Light-on-dark color schemes certainly had their advantages on early 
> monitors (flicker, tearing), but with today's sophisticated screens, I 
> personally prefer dark text on light backgrounds. Even with a brightness 
> setting matching the ambient light (many people I know have turned the 
> backlight up way too high), longer blocks of white text on a dark 
> background have the nasty habit of leaving an after-image in my eyes, as 
> demonstrated by this site: http://www.ironicsans.com/owmyeyes/.
>

That's a very poor example of light-on-dark: It's all-bold, pure-white on 
pure-black. Even light-on-dark fans don't do that. The "white" is normally a 
grey.


>
> [1] http://sigs.aisnet.org/sighci/bit04/BIT_Hall.pdf
> [2] 
> http://www.psycho.uni-duesseldorf.de/abteilungen/aap/Dokumente/Ergonomics-2007-Text-background-polarity.pdf

Neither of those (and from what I noticed when I skimmed through, none of 
the experiments they cited) appear to take into account whether the subject 
is more accustomed to positive contrast or negative contrast. Since most 
people are more accustomed to positive contrast I would expect the findings 
to be biased in favor of positive contrast.

FWIW, I found the white backgrounds of those pdf's to be rather eye-searing. 
Eventually ended up looking for a "use system color settings" option in my 
pdf reader.