D_Blackwell - 3:13 am on Mar 15, 2008 (gmt 0)

Got to agree with fside on legibility. It's crucial. I lean heavily toward light-colored and light-textured background-images with color: #000

Also agree about complementary color combinations; primarily with background-images:, because I have to have a really good reason to stray from black text.

If there is much text, I stay with very readable fonts; Arial, Verdana - the usual suspects. The fancy fonts aren't usually user friendly for more than a few sentences at most. Save the fancy stuff for <h1>, <h2>, graphics - short stuff that will benefit from a font stands out a bit, but isn't overbearing in an unreadable quantity.

I know that you've specifically asked about colors, and the short answer is dark text on a light background as a winning formula (for my sites).

As long as I'm onto fonts, I like to use a higher than average font-size: than you will find almost anywhere, but it works for us. I start with font-size: 100% in html, body - and then bump it up in the <div>s. 1.1em minimum to as much as 1.35em depending on what it's for and how much there is. 1) Higher and higher screen resolutions make font-sizes smaller and smaller on the screen. (Especially with sites still working with px and such, and there are tons of them.). 2) There are a ton of older users out there, and they reward sites that they can read without a hassle!

line-height: is also very useful. Bump it up and get some extra leading between the lines. This can also add tremendously to legibility.

Also agree about complementary color combinations; primarily with background-images:, because I have to have a really good reason to stray from black text.

If there is much text, I stay with very readable fonts; Arial, Verdana - the usual suspects. The fancy fonts aren't usually user friendly for more than a few sentences at most. Save the fancy stuff for <h1>, <h2>, graphics - short stuff that will benefit from a font stands out a bit, but isn't overbearing in an unreadable quantity.

I know that you've specifically asked about colors, and the short answer is dark text on a light background as a winning formula (for my sites). But you've also prompted 'guidelines' and 'most comfortable'. For this, color is but one consideration. It's about overall usability and user experience. If you've got a good bit of text, a lot to say, break that text up with relevant images. In fact, the images don't even have to be spectacular. For most articles, the key value of adding additional images is not to examplify the text (though important), but to break the text up and make it more readable, more user friendly; the eye can come and go, the reading can start and stop - and it's easy to find your place because the eye has probably keyed on an image. As a general rule, people do not read books or even long articles online. But, float images left and right here and there among the paragraphs, and people will eat it up.