Trying to decide between pure black or dark gray for a dashboard background

Honestly, I had to pick a base color for a new analytics dashboard last week. It was between pure black (#000000) and a dark gray (#121212). I went with the dark gray because I read it reduces eye strain from high contrast. After testing with a few users, one person actually said 'this feels easier to look at for a long time.' Has anyone else found gray to be better than true black for data-heavy screens?

2 comments

2 Comments

olivia_barnes971mo ago

Oh, that's a really smart point about eye strain. Something else to consider is how the background color plays with different screen types. On some OLED monitors, true black can cause a weird smearing effect when you scroll past charts or numbers. The dark gray keeps everything looking smooth and solid, which helps people focus on the data itself instead of little visual hiccups.

joel2801mo ago

My last dashboard design looked like a sad Excel sheet from 2003, so I'm taking notes. That point about OLED smearing is huge, I never would have thought of that. I just picked gray because pure black felt like staring into a void at 2 AM. It's funny how the tiny choice you make to stop your eyes from hurting also fixes a tech problem you didn't even know about.