Color Combinations and Web Usability

What colors tested well...

[grnidone]

the most readable color combination is black text on white background; overall, there is a stronger preference for any combination containing black. The two least readable combinations were red on green and fuchsia on blue. White on blue and red on yellow were ranked fairly high, while green on yellow and white on fuchsia were ranked fairly low. All others fell somewhere between these extremes.

The full report here:

[hubel.sfasu.edu...]

[grnidone]

Found some good information on the panatone site as well:

Colors act upon the body as well as the mind. Red has been shown to stimulate the senses and raise the blood pressure, while blue has the opposite effect and calms the mind.

[pantone.com...]

[mivox]

red on yellow were ranked fairly high

Red on yellow? Wow... that one I never would have guessed. To me, that says "obnoxious" not "readable"

Personally, I am finding more and more that black on white is a bit grating for me... I really like grey text, actually. Dark grey text on a light gry background is very comfortable.

[Eric_Jarvis]

Color Matters have some good stuff

[colormatters.com ]

[werty]

i have really taken a liking to using red pen on a yellow legal pad. i would love to see a decent design based off of this color combination. is it even possible?

[edit_g]

I got a spam email which was red and yellow today. Red background and a yellow box with text in red font colour. You could only look at it for about 5 seconds straight.

I forwarded it around to our development team and got some good laughs: so I guess it worked in a way (shame it was for debt consolidation services). I don't think I'll be using those two colours as main colours for a web site...

[werty]

thats what i figured...perhaps if you were a clown and needed a brightly colored web page it would suit you.

[Herman]

In my opinion, when you decide which colors you are going to use, you can't dismiss the fact that about 10% of the male population and 5 % of the female population has some form of colorblindness.

An excellent site to get information on that subject can be found at [vischeck.com...]

[Syren_Song]

Great link, Herman, and welcome to WebmasterWorld!

I always wondered what the world looked like to the colorblind. Now I've got a much better idea. And I also know what quite a few of my designs look like to colorblind folks. Not as good as I might like in some cases, but all were readable, so I'm fairly content overall.

Thanks again!
Syren

[Herman]

Thank you Syren!

Interesting to know is also that Dr Alex Wade of Stanford, one of the initiators of the Vischeck project, was most helpfull with some questions I had.