On Mon, 24 Mar 2008, Jürgen Spitzmüller wrote:
The white background of usual text processors hurts my eyes.
That's a very common complaint. The brightness of large white backgrounds apparently make very subtle flickers apparent to the brain even when we do not consciously notice them. I find looking at white backgrounds tiring rather than painful, so the applications in which I tend to spend most of my day are configured as white text on black backgrounds (console apps like pine, slrn, emacs) or black text on cream/off-white backgrounds (gui apps such as lyx and firefox). If the background is comparatively small, and common areas of the page have a different background (e.g., a soothing shade of blue), that is much less tiring or painful. There is probably research available on the web on the appropriate colors (and combinations of colors) that most people find easy on the eyes, attractive, and inviting to view. A number of years ago I attended a couple of (free) half-day seminars on the use of color in computer-assisted presentations (Beamer class, for example). It was fascinating, highly educational, and extremely useful. The colors used affect the mood of the audience (e.g., reds and yellows generate excitement and raise tension while blues and greys are calming), and their subconscious impression of professionalism (muted blues, greys, maroons) versus avant-garde, "arty" (bright reds, greens, yellows). I favor professional, calming, confidence-boosting colors. They also lend credibility to the written message. Rich -- Richard B. Shepard, Ph.D. | Integrity Credibility Applied Ecosystem Services, Inc. | Innovation <http://www.appl-ecosys.com> Voice: 503-667-4517 Fax: 503-667-8863
