GUI Bloopers 2.0, 2nd Edition

Web Appendix: Color Bloopers

Blooper 71: Text hard to read on background

Even large-font text is hard to read against a background that is patterned and/or that contrasts poorly with the text color. This blooper occurs mainly on the Web, but sometimes occurs in desktop applications and consumer appliances. It has three common variations.

Variation A: Text on textured background

The first variation is displaying text against a background pattern. Content text at TugPegasis.org is displayed on a patterned background, making it hard to read (Figure 1).

Figure 1 TugPegasis.org: patterned background makes text hard to read.

The Web ...