Unpopular opinion: That designer who told me to stop using pure black in UI was wrong for my specific project

A friend who does UX work in Austin insisted last year that pure black (#000000) is always bad for text and backgrounds. She said it causes eye strain and looks harsh. I listened to her and switched to a dark gray for a client's mobile app. The client hated it. They said the contrast was too low outdoors in sunlight. I switched back to pure black for the next version and they loved it. Has anyone else had a case where the 'rules' just don't work for your actual user?

2 comments

2 Comments

logan_schmidt8d ago

Yeah I totally get where you're coming from. Those hard design rules get treated like gospel but they're really just starting points. Pure black's eye strain thing is real in dim lighting but outdoors it's a different game entirely. The sun washes out dark grays way faster than people testing in perfect office lighting realize. Your client's use case matters more than some generic best practice.

vera_roberts8d ago

Read an article somewhere that tested pure black vs dark gray on laptops in direct sunlight, and the black actually held up better for contrast. It's context dependent, plain and simple.