[thelist] Is this design too dark?

[David Kaufman]

Tara Cleveland <evolt at taracleveland.com> wrote:
> Hi Everyone,
hi Tara!

> http://www.taracleveland.com/clients/inproject-mockup/mockup3b.gif
>
> I've had mixed reports about this design. The client *loves* it, but
> she's had several people look at it and comment that it's too dark.
>
> [...] How is the contrast on the menu for you? Is it readable?

as one of the 17% of the adult male population that suffers from "some
degree" of red-green color-blindness, i can say that the black menu text
does "seem" dark to me, unlike the white "Home" link, which is perfectly
readable and clearly visible to me.

but i suspect it's not actually darkness, per se, that i'm perceiving but
more of a lack of contrast.  you see, people with normal color vision see
red and green as "bright" colors with a high degree of "color contrast"
between them, while those of us who are "red-green challenged" (most of
whom are completely unaware that they're semi-color-blind) are frequently
annoyed by designs which use red or green text (especially at < 50%
luminance) against black backgrounds (or vice versa, as your design does).

one simple way you can test for this effect is simply to convert the image
to grayscale.  then you see that your black text against a low-luminance
green background does "seem dark", can you not?

also, are the other "several people" who commented it was too dark adult
males?  have they been tested for red-green color-blindness?

> can you still tell they [The pictures of the children] are
> kids or is it too dark?

the pictures of the kids look fine to me, contrast and brightness-wise.
the image does seem slightly dark, but i do like it, and it's not hard at
all to see that they *are* kids.  i also agree with Tony that they seem
quite freaky-looking with their odd mix of facial expressions, alien-green
skintones and that swollen pinkish-purple tongue ...even *i* can diagnose
the acute cases of food poisoning from their color ... guess i just like
freakiness, though.

so i hope this isn't for a kid-health site though -- oh wait, i see.  it's
a kid *mental* health site -- well perhaps the image is appropriate then
:-)

hth,

-dave