Web page color & accessibility

[Elena OMalley]

Another idea to kick around on using light text on a dark
background for headings: 

This can help people who rely on pattern recognition to get
through the chore (for them) of reading. Some folks with some 
kinds of dyslexia love it when you make headings light-on-dark 
-- this means that they can easily identify what the headings 
are without having to read every word on the page. Same deal 
with certain types of focusing disorders. Those dark blobs
with only one or a few words inside will be read first, and
the headings will help them analyze the screen's content to
determine which parts they will make the effort to read. 
(No study to cite, just people that I know.)

While using color as the only way of identifying the category 
of a word can cause problems for some (e.g. removing underlines 
from hypertext can be bothersome for some color blind people), 
using it as one method along with others (changing font size or 
type, etc) is very helpful for others. Some people won't care 
what color scheme you use, as long as they can bump up the text 
size.

And everyone's mileage will vary.

Elena O'Malley
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Elena O'Malley, Head of Library Computer and Internet Services
Emerson College Library, 120 Boylston Street, Boston, MA 02116
Elena_OMalley at emerson.edu, library.emerson.edu