Saturday, August 6, 2011

Timid Critique of Some Blogs by a Somewhat Blind Person

Prologue:
Now, before I  utter a single word I must apologize in advance for ruffling even a single  feather of my adored bloggers.  I know that many of you spend hours ruminating about how you can dress up and fancify the look of your Blog Page. It happens that I do not understand this overwhelming need to embellish but, hey, that's just me.  If your blog is mostly words my thought is that they should be somewhat legible.....call me crazy.....

I applaud creativity wherever it pops up.  In fact I consider it to be a great life force next to Peasant Bread, Baba Ganouj and Chocolate.  Ok....  Having said that I will go on to the main premise here.

Body:
Dammit, can we just be a bit more considerate of those of us who have to spend much of our time groping around for things?  (no pornographic meaning intended, I swear).  There should be an Unwritten Law somewhere that words are required to be in Black on White or, at the very least, on Pale Beige.  For some reason, even white on black is not really nifty. I seem to remember from one of my classes in  Graphic Design that Yellow on  Black is the most readable for  signs of great import like "Caution....Road Ends Here- 1000 Foot Drop Begins",  "Danger -Curves Impossible to Navigate Except by Tricycle" and "Abandon Hope All Ye Who Enter Here".  However, for something that goes on for paragraphs even that combination is  not recommended.

I am not asking for pity here, folks......just common sense.  I know you don't even think about it when you conquer the eye charts with 20/20but choosing to print your words in black but on a  solid red  or maybe brown background you are kind of defeating your purpose at communicating with the fuzzy sighted of the world.

I must admit that I have actually had to give up trying to read some of my favorite blogs because they are illegible to me.  Sob.  And even some which simply have a pattern under the type can be precursors of a migraine.  For instance, how would you like to try to read, say "War and Peace",  if a child had spilled cherry Koolaid over the pages and also festooned every one of them with scribbles of multi- colored crayon?  (Perhaps I exaggerate a mite, but that was for effect.)  My message here, dear ones, is.......whenever possible...

                       KEEP THE EFFING WORDS BLACK ON WHITE

                                                               PLEASE!

Epilogue:

THANK YOU!

Love, Lo

26 comments:

  1. I have the same problem Lo, especially with the maroon on blue or gray on light blue, etc. I can read my blog ok, but maybe it's time to do some changes for people who share the "vision blues". I'm glad for Win7's easy way to enlarge print. Use that a lot!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Lo, me too. Sometimes I cannot read a word of it...other times I can limp thru til I get really annoyed. I use colors on a white background and that's stupid enough for me. lol

    A couple of times I accidently changed the background color and it too me a freaking hour to get it changed back. Because I am a technotard. (There: I said it.)
    sigh....

    ReplyDelete
  3. One of my favorite bloggers uses blue on black. Shoot me.

    I'm with you all the way on this one.

    If you want me to read your blog, don't make it so damn hard, people!

    ReplyDelete
  4. Black on white is nice. I remember using yellow on black for awhile but then decided black on white is easier to read.
    What gets me is the itsy bitsy fonts that I have to pretty much climb on top of to see the words. Maybe I should buy a magnifying glass but I'm not going to.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Gads. I had to check and see if I was one of the offenders. I didn't think that it would possibly be me because I have the same gripe. Now will you please recommend a font style and size that works best?

    Please know that it is possible to enlarge your screen image is anything is too small. Computers are a wonderful means of communication.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Not guilty, me lud...well, not very guilty.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Hi, Lo,..I get this in spades!! I just tried to read a blogger's writing, and couldn't make out one word...It was blue on brown. I don't have a doubt that the blog was interesting, but I won't go back...It had a rather permanent look. It has to be black on white for me to see it,My eyes aren't what they used to be.,,Love, Your "old" friend

    ReplyDelete
  8. Last week I had already changed to black on a green tinged beige. Also had gotten rid of the patterns. Went for the "cleaner" look. Hope that helped. :(

    Personally white on black I cannot read at all.

    ReplyDelete
  9. I'm on parchment beige--izzat okay? And I agree with you. Not only can't we read the things, but we're immediately grumpy from having been reminded we're too old to read the things. And you don't want to get an old lady grumpy, because we just don't CARE.

    ReplyDelete
  10. I think I'll ask my designer if she can lighten up my blue background...
    At least the writing is already black!

    Hugs, sweet lady ~ and I'm sorry. You were right to speak up.

    ReplyDelete
  11. G'day. Good on you for saying something. I will have a look at mine now. Take care. Liz..

    ReplyDelete
  12. If it's not black on white I don't read it. But I DO like all those fonts out there.

    ReplyDelete
  13. I use Google Reader to read blogs- all in one place, plus it is just the text and pictures.
    Otherwise, I use the mouse to select the text and highlight it, making it more lisible.

    ReplyDelete
  14. My "most boring blog in the world" is dark purple because i love it, and the background color can't be changed -- i've tried.

    Anything that's hard to read, i cut and paste into a simple notepad, then erase it when i'm done reading. It does help.

    ReplyDelete
  15. I so agree. I've tried to enlarge my print on my Rockin' Chair Reflections blog and it keeps reverting back to the smaller print. I've been planning on changing the background because (much as I love it), the font won't enlarge. Will do that, today. (Put that down as #83 on ToDo List).

    ReplyDelete
  16. Amen. Nothing like weird color lettering on weird colored backgrounds...

    ReplyDelete
  17. Arial bold, if available. 12 point, or even better, 14. You can use the key combo of CTRL + to enlarge almost anything on your screen. (I have to do it with your blog, Lo, and I'm a lot younger than you. I find this font, although I know it's a common popular choice, to be difficult to read.) After a couple false starts with my own blog, my text is now firmly set to black on white.

    ReplyDelete
  18. I got really worried reading this, then I looked back and my text is white on black, not pink on black as I had feared.

    Injaynesworld.. I think I may read that same blog.

    ReplyDelete
  19. When I first tried to design my blog (big mistake) I tried to do text on some color--maybe blue. But my friend who is good at all things computers set me straight for exactly the reason you mentioned.

    ReplyDelete
  20. I have a hard time with the moving beautiful scenes under the writing..drives my eyes nuts. Lately lots of gals have gone to some strange font that looks like scribbling..very hard to read.
    I eventually give up on the hard to read ones..and I usually tell them why it is hard for me to read:)

    ReplyDelete
  21. I learned to do Control+ to enlarge type on a page... and it will be large every time you come back to it. Because of that, I'm not even sure how large the type is on my page any more. I need to go back into the design thingy to make it permanently large, and maybe bold, too.

    ReplyDelete
  22. It's a fair point Lo and one that does need making from time to time. I hope other bloggers reading your post do listen.

    ReplyDelete
  23. I highlight the words on quite a few blogs to read them better. I can also enlarge the screen and I find myself doing that more and more. I have a black background but with fairly lightish grey texts. Hope that is okay for you. I have never changed my template since I started my blog three years ago. Maybe it is time.

    ReplyDelete
  24. Woohoo, I got this one right *g* Now I just have to figure out how to get wordpress to stop playing with my fonts.

    ReplyDelete