typography - White text on black background

Are there any reasons to avoid using white text on a black background?

Answer

Here's an article on it. To quote the article's quotes:

However, most studies have shown that dark characters on a light background are superior to light characters on a dark background (when the refresh rate is fairly high). For example, Bauer and Cavonius (1980) found that participants were 26% more accurate in reading text when they read it with dark characters on a light background.

and

People with astigmatism (aproximately 50% of the population) find it harder to read white text on black than black text on white. Part of this has to do with light levels: with a bright display (white background) the iris closes a bit more, decreasing the effect of the "deformed" lens; with a dark display (black background) the iris opens to receive more light and the deformation of the lens creates a much fuzzier focus at the eye.

If you do want to use a dark theme, see how others use it:

Windows console

• Gray on black


• Large font


• Bold


• Semi-serif

Expression Blend

• Eggshell on gray



• Sans-serif


• ClearType (zoomed out on an LCD, the text looks yellow-white; you don't notice the blue)