If white on black text causes any eye strain at all then you need to adjust your monitor, not make the text gray.
vedmakk · 6h ago
Dimming the monitor just turns white into gray globally. It lowers overall luminance, but doesn't fix the relative contrast or the perceptual glare caused by high-contrast elements like pure white on pure black.
In fact, even at lower brightness, bright-on-dark can still cause halation, retinal fatigue, and visual vibration, especially in low-light environments.
Designing softer contrasts does the same thing, but more intentionally - and we can't assume users have ideal screen settings. Better to design for humans, not hardware.
Also: white-on-black is just one example.
db48x · 5h ago
Contrast does not cause fatigue or eye strain. Brightness does. If your monitor is hurting your eyes, turn it down. Don’t rely on a designer to use gray text so that it doesn’t hurt your eyes, adjust the brightness directly to the level that is comfortable for you.
vedmakk · 5h ago
Eye strain has many causes - brightness plays a role among other factors as described. If a design requires users to tweak their monitor to feel okay, it's not a good design.
In fact, even at lower brightness, bright-on-dark can still cause halation, retinal fatigue, and visual vibration, especially in low-light environments.
Designing softer contrasts does the same thing, but more intentionally - and we can't assume users have ideal screen settings. Better to design for humans, not hardware.
Also: white-on-black is just one example.