Form Label Colour Usability

How hard can it be to understand?

[BlobFisk]

I'm currently working on the UI for a browser based CRM application. But now I'm running into the "design by committee" problem!

The text colour being used for data presentation is a dark navy colour. However, the people on the design committee want the labels that colour too (with the font bolded). I tried it, hated it, made it black. Looks fine now. Yet they are insisting that the bold blue labels with normal blue text for data is easier on the eye.

Now, I'm convinced that this is a usability issue. The system is going to be used by people for 8 hours a day. After a while the blues will just swim together, meaning no real definition between label and data. However, I could be wrong! I may be too involved with the UI to be objective.

I'd be interested in people's opinions on this - blue/blue or black/blue?

TIA

[Wrasse]

I go for the black/blue theme all the time.

But, when people are using the computer for 8+h a day I prefer an almost black(#0000a0) text and an almost white background. It's maybe me beeing old school or it can be that I started as a user in a badly color-coordinated system.

/Anders

[MatthewHSE]

Sounds like a matter of preference to me. I personally would find a blue/black mix to be quite annoying but others (and apparently you!) would disagree. What about a dark gray for the labels, or some sort of background color?

<added>Background color only on the labels, of course, not the whole page! :) </added>

[BlobFisk]

It will come down to the user testing eventually. My one concern there being that the testing should be over a long period (3 or 4 hours at least).... but probably won't be!

Initial tests I've run here show blue/blue to be winning, which is surprising to me... Again, it doesn't emulate the production environment, that is 8hrs per day!