Re: #1: It is common practice to make body text off-black. Is it good practice? Well, Matthew Butterick’s book, Butterick’s Practical Typography—considered a definitive work on the subject—uses black text.
You may note that Butterick suggests using off-black text—but consider his reasoning: the issue is contrast! As Butterick notes, screens emit light rather than absorbing it, making high contrast potentially painful to look at. Indeed; but darkening the background reduces the amount of light emitted, while lightening the text increases it. The former is superior as a way of reducing contrast. (Just don’t do both! That’s wholly unnecessary.)
Re: #2: Something to be A/B tested, I suppose. (Alternatively and even better: have this be user-configurable, via the account settings page, e.g.: “Display vote widget (•) above post only ( ) below post only ( ) both above and below post”. “Sane defaults plus comprehensive configuration options” is the gold standard of UX design for such matters.)
Re: #3: This is exactly the point of responsive design. Hover for desktop clients, hamburger for mobile. There is no reason at all to insist on a single, unified solution; web UIs should at all times be appropriate to the platform they’re being viewed on.
Re: #1: I to am a big fan of Practical Typography :) That’s a pretty good point, I actually don’t thik we disagree much. I think I may prefer just slightly prefer whiter backgrouds with slightly grey text. But only slightly.
Re: #2: I largely agree with this, though I might lean more on the side of giving the user less configuration options. Like, if you give everyone an option for everything, then the options get real cluttered. But I don’t have strong feeling about adding this preference in general.
Thanks!
Re: #1: It is common practice to make body text off-black. Is it good practice? Well, Matthew Butterick’s book, Butterick’s Practical Typography—considered a definitive work on the subject—uses black text.
You may note that Butterick suggests using off-black text—but consider his reasoning: the issue is contrast! As Butterick notes, screens emit light rather than absorbing it, making high contrast potentially painful to look at. Indeed; but darkening the background reduces the amount of light emitted, while lightening the text increases it. The former is superior as a way of reducing contrast. (Just don’t do both! That’s wholly unnecessary.)
Edit: Check out readthesequences.com for an example of “black on off-white”.
Re: #2: Something to be A/B tested, I suppose. (Alternatively and even better: have this be user-configurable, via the account settings page, e.g.: “Display vote widget (•) above post only ( ) below post only ( ) both above and below post”. “Sane defaults plus comprehensive configuration options” is the gold standard of UX design for such matters.)
Re: #3: This is exactly the point of responsive design. Hover for desktop clients, hamburger for mobile. There is no reason at all to insist on a single, unified solution; web UIs should at all times be appropriate to the platform they’re being viewed on.
Re: #1: I to am a big fan of Practical Typography :) That’s a pretty good point, I actually don’t thik we disagree much. I think I may prefer just slightly prefer whiter backgrouds with slightly grey text. But only slightly.
Re: #2: I largely agree with this, though I might lean more on the side of giving the user less configuration options. Like, if you give everyone an option for everything, then the options get real cluttered. But I don’t have strong feeling about adding this preference in general.
Re: #3: Totally.