Which is better on a website, dark text on a light background or light text on a dark background? Why?
by 
Rottweiler
ANSWERS: 7
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A smart lady who's helping me with my website told me this...think of your site visitor's needs first and what the search engines want second. Based on that advice, I'd say that most people would find reading dark text on a light background more easy to read. Look at the Answerbag website for example. Most of the website is white, yet it's very readable. The blues, oranges, and dark gray add some interest, but the main parts that we are reading are black on white.
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I use both but on two of my sites I use blue with white type. Look here: http://photochoping.sitesled.com http://www.freewebtown.com/justcars/
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"Better" doesn't have one answer here. The question is this: better for whom? Who is your targeted market? People over 40 won't take the time to read a small light font on a dark background because the letters appear to vibrate. Light type on a dark field can be more striking, but is generally less legible than dark type on a light background.
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I agree with the position "one is not necessarily better than the other". But I would also add, the font "type" (serif or sans serif) and size make a huge difference too. You can overcome the reading difficulty level by using bigger or easier to read font. Sans serif is typically easier to read. Then there's colour complement. White on black is easier to read than green on black, for example.
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Reading this in 2008 is interesting. Many of us over 40 begin to have 'low vision' issues. Yes, we get our eyes examined and yes we wear glasses. CONSTRAST is the issue. A white font on a pale pastel background is virtually impossible even when zoomed up. Web designers (and print publications too) need to think of their audience and decide if "artsy" is what it is all about and sacrifice readability.
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Personally, I prefer light text on a dark background when using a monitor as the monitor emits light and I am rather photo-sensitive. For passive (non-luminescent) texts like paper, I prefer dark text on a light background
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Dark on light. That's what people are used to. The light on dark has to be the right size and thickness (bold?) to make it readable, many times. And DON'T do light blue on blue, blue on black, green on blue, yellow on white, and the like. Those are almost impossible to see unless they are HUGE letters. (And no, I'm not blind... I am reading THIS as I type it, normal font, from five feet away.)
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