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Comment by chrisseaton | Hacker News Reader

Some times less is more, when it comes to things like contrast.

Depends on the monitor. If you’re using a normal LCD or you’ve spent your money on features other than contrast (namely resolution and latency), black text already looks grey. No need to make it any more grey than it already is.

Meta-irony at its finest.

What contrast do you want? A billion to one? At some point it's excessive, right? So there's some value less than infinite that you're after. Why is your monitor's maximum contrast the right value?

There's actually a book that studies this by measuring readability of print articles by seeing how far readers got: Type and Layout by Colin Wheildon.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/1875750223/

The research upheld the "any color as long as its black" popular wisdom for text, but found that black text on a ~15% tinted background (any color) did not impede readability. (Deeper background tints impeded readability.)

> Why is your monitor's maximum contrast the right value?

Please give me maximum contrast and let me adjust my monitor.

Yes, billion to one. Or at least like 1000:1, which todays monitor easily achieves. Whatever maximum contrast value of whatever monitor I look atm is OK, anything lower is not (including OLEDs). I don't get why we should be "forced" to look at #aaa text on #eee background "contrasting" text. For me, even #222 is "too much", to the point I usually notice something is off and then Imma mess with inspector and fix colors, which is annoying, takes my time, and wastes CPU cycles, especially when one tries to use some plugin to fix this automatically. The extension is usually CPU hog, so the "low contrasting text websites" are actually harmful to society much like needlessly JSheavy sites.

When ever there are discussions about accessibility there are always voices calling for "moderation" ... does every building really need a ramp? why does every single restaurant need an accessible bathroom? do those people really need all that contrast?

But you can exceed accessibility requirements without using absolute black and white.

And for example some people require larger fonts for accessibility reasons - but we don't make all website with 100 point fonts do we? Instead we use tools to magnify the screen - the same way your OS can increase contrast for you if you need it. There's moderation there.

I get the point you are trying to make but ... maybe don't make it?

We don't actually have an issue with "too much" accessibility.

The point is: we should strive to make accessibility parametric. If someone wants 50 pt fonts - let them. If someone wants 100 pt fonts - let them. If someone wants high-contrast - let them. Don't hard-code it, because you're making assumptions about people's accessibility requirements.

Is the maximum contrast always the most accessible, for all people?

No, it isn't. This is not like a wheelchair ramp.

...and in response to your initial two questions, however rhetorical they may have been: yes, every building needs a ramp and every restaurant needs an accessible bathroom. You may be fortunate enough never to need the second one, but you likely hope to live long enough to need the first. (I needed ramps long before age would’ve normally dictated it — stuff happens — so I tend to get a bit perturbed when people wonder about the necessity of ramps.)

My oldest friend needs a wheelchair to get around now (lyme disease). It was definitely rhetorical.

A billion to one sounds reasonable to me. Now if only I could find a reasonably sized OLED panel...

I was, in fact, making a cheap shot at how hn decreases the contrast on downvoted comments.

I apologize for any intelligent discussion I may have caused.

I installed the extension and it works great, but I think I'll leave it disabled for HN ;)

Yea, glad you can lower contrast setting on your monitor and leave normal contrast to the rest of us.

I can’t, as then I’d have to re-calibrate it again. But you can easily just increase the contrast setting on your monitor and leave sensible defaults for the rest of us :)

the shitty tn panels my workplace gives us are already maxed out in that regard. I needed to juice them in order to view a logon form.

And that’s why I replace all the panels on my laptops with proper ones, and only use monitors with good contrast ratios.

As low-budget option I can recommend the Fujitsu Siemens P17-2, it’s from 2004, available used around 20 € and has better contrast, brightness, and viewing angles than any TN panel even today.

It’s ridiculous that a monitor from 2004 is still better than anything the complainers in this thread are using today.

I'll bear that in mind but I'm not buying stuff for the office. My home equipment is all dell ultrasharps and they look pretty nice.

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