Grey text on white backgrounds needs to end.
I never noticed it before since I was on a CRT that was perpetually a bit dark (actually not sure if it was a monitor issue, graphics card, or driver - but that doesn't matter).
Now that I'm on a new laptop though, I'm finding that every other website uses grey as their default text color over an eye-searing white or off-white background. And I don't mean a sensible dark grey like #111111. GitHub, for instance, is using #555555 for their text (on top of #FAFAFA). I have the brightness on this LCD down as low as it'll go, and that's still physically painful to look at.
How the fuck did this insane design trend even get started? I'm well aware that too much contrast is bad (like #000000 over #FFFFFF). But shit, the degree of this anti-contrast is just excessive.
UPDATE (2012-08-21): Fixed some stupid mistakes as pointed out by a commenter.
2 comments for "Grey Text on White? Are You Insane?"
Ummmmmm.... #EEEEEE is off-white.
Oops, yes, I meant #111111. I don't know what the hell's wrong with me, but for some reason I keep getting black/white #000000/#FFFFFF mixed up. FFF... just seems very "dark" to me, and 000...seems "pure, empty" like white. Keeps screwing me up.
Which, of course, means that #555555 *is* darker than middle-grey. It's still eye-searing though.