Every background below is shown just as we tested it: plain Arial words at the ordinary
size, set right on the pattern, with no table behind them. Under each one are our scores,
the average of four readers aged 61 to 80 at arm's length from a 15-inch screen, rounded to
the nearest whole number. 5 means as easy as print on white paper; 1 means we couldn't get
through the sentence. How we tested is explained on the front
page.
Your own screen may be brighter or dimmer than mine, and your eyes may be younger. Sit
back to arm's length and judge for yourself. That's the point of the exercise.
The page is heavy with backgrounds. Give it a moment to fill in.
The GeoCities.us clip art backgrounds
The six backgrounds in the GeoCities.us clip art library, free to every Homesteader.
1. Starry night
Black: can you read this at arm's length?
White: can you read this at arm's length?
Yellow: can you read this at arm's length?
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Black 1 · White 4 · Yellow 4
Black disappears entirely. White and yellow read well, and the tiny stars hardly bother the eye.
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2. Paw prints
Black: can you read this at arm's length?
White: can you read this at arm's length?
Yellow: can you read this at arm's length?
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Black 4 · White 1 · Yellow 1
Pale enough for black words. White and yellow wash out to nothing.
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3. Gingham
Black: can you read this at arm's length?
White: can you read this at arm's length?
Yellow: can you read this at arm's length?
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Black 2 · White 2 · Yellow 1
The checks are nearly the size of the letters, so the eye can't tell one from the other. Yellow worst.
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4. Notebook paper
Black: can you read this at arm's length?
White: can you read this at arm's length?
Yellow: can you read this at arm's length?
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Black 4 · White 1 · Yellow 1
Black reads like writing on paper, but the ruled lines run right through the letters unless your lines happen to fall between them.
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5. Film strip
Black: can you read this at arm's length?
White: can you read this at arm's length?
Yellow: can you read this at arm's length?
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Black 1 · White 4 · Yellow 4
Mostly a dark maroon, which takes white and yellow well. The sprocket band down the left edge eats the first word of every line.
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6. Hazard stripes (animated)
Black: can you read this at arm's length?
White: can you read this at arm's length?
Yellow: can you read this at arm's length?
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Black 1 · White 1 · Yellow 1
Yellow and black diagonals, and they move. The worst of the 22. Daniel asked me to turn it off.
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The twelve tiles from TILEWORK
Seamless background tiles drawn by Dorothy Prettyman, from her free library,
TILEWORK. In her own library every swatch has a solid
table on it, which is exactly my advice. Here they are without one, for the sake of the
test. She lists a matching background color with every tile, and I've used hers.
7. Grass
Black: can you read this at arm's length?
White: can you read this at arm's length?
Yellow: can you read this at arm's length?
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Black 2 · White 3 · Yellow 2
Bright green blades running every which way. White does best, and not well.
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8. Water
Black: can you read this at arm's length?
White: can you read this at arm's length?
Yellow: can you read this at arm's length?
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Black 2 · White 3 · Yellow 4
Bright blue with light ripples. Yellow does best; white catches in the ripples.
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9. Flames
Black: can you read this at arm's length?
White: can you read this at arm's length?
Yellow: can you read this at arm's length?
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Black 1 · White 2 · Yellow 1
Orange and black, light and dark both. Yellow on flames is invisible.
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10. Bubbles
Black: can you read this at arm's length?
White: can you read this at arm's length?
Yellow: can you read this at arm's length?
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Black 4 · White 1 · Yellow 1
Light aqua, so black reads well. The highlights on the bubbles swallow white and yellow.
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11. Denim
Black: can you read this at arm's length?
White: can you read this at arm's length?
Yellow: can you read this at arm's length?
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Black 2 · White 4 · Yellow 4
A middle blue that takes white and yellow well, with only a little bother from the weave.
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12. Lace
Black: can you read this at arm's length?
White: can you read this at arm's length?
Yellow: can you read this at arm's length?
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Black 3 · White 1 · Yellow 1
White lace on dusty rose. Black reads, slowly. White disappears into the lace.
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13. Leopard
Black: can you read this at arm's length?
White: can you read this at arm's length?
Yellow: can you read this at arm's length?
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Black 3 · White 1 · Yellow 1
Tawny gold with dark spots. Black reads between the spots, with effort.
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14. Camouflage
Black: can you read this at arm's length?
White: can you read this at arm's length?
Yellow: can you read this at arm's length?
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Black 2 · White 2 · Yellow 2
Light patches and dark patches, so every color of words loses somewhere. Which is what camouflage is for.
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15. Tie-dye
Black: can you read this at arm's length?
White: can you read this at arm's length?
Yellow: can you read this at arm's length?
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Black 1 · White 1 · Yellow 1
Every color at once. Nothing reads. Nothing.
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16. Parchment
Black: can you read this at arm's length?
White: can you read this at arm's length?
Yellow: can you read this at arm's length?
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Black 5 · White 1 · Yellow 1
Pale, soft and nearly plain. The only 5 in the whole test, with black words.
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17. Diamond plate
Black: can you read this at arm's length?
White: can you read this at arm's length?
Yellow: can you read this at arm's length?
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Black 3 · White 2 · Yellow 1
Middle gray with bright highlights on the treads. Black reads, with effort.
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18. Pastel swirl
Black: can you read this at arm's length?
White: can you read this at arm's length?
Yellow: can you read this at arm's length?
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Black 4 · White 1 · Yellow 1
Light pastels, so black reads well. White and yellow vanish.
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The backgrounds from the graphics sets
Four free sets of matching graphics made by GeoCities.us members, each with its own
background. Each set asks for a link back to its maker, and here they are.
19. Clouds, from Cloud Nine Angel Graphics
From Cloud Nine Angel Graphics, by Shelby
Black: can you read this at arm's length?
White: can you read this at arm's length?
Yellow: can you read this at arm's length?
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Black 4 · White 1 · Yellow 1
Soft lavender and white cloud. Black reads well; white and yellow vanish into the clouds.
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20. Red check, from Lorene's Country Graphics
From Lorene's Country Graphics, by Lorene Galyean
Black: can you read this at arm's length?
White: can you read this at arm's length?
Yellow: can you read this at arm's length?
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Black 2 · White 1 · Yellow 1
A small, close red check. Black is hard work; the others are hopeless.
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21. Scales, from The Wyrm's Hoard
From The Wyrm's Hoard, by Emmett Crowder
Black: can you read this at arm's length?
White: can you read this at arm's length?
Yellow: can you read this at arm's length?
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Black 1 · White 3 · Yellow 3
Dark green with a gold rim on every scale. Black disappears; white and yellow read, but the rims tire the eye.
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22. Starfield, from STARPORT
From STARPORT, by Dustin Mayfield
Black: can you read this at arm's length?
White: can you read this at arm's length?
Yellow: can you read this at arm's length?
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Black 1 · White 4 · Yellow 4
Nearly black, with a faint purple haze. White and yellow read well; black is gone.
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The prescription, tested
After the 66 tests, we went back through all 22 backgrounds a second time with the
words inside a table with a solid BGCOLOR: dark words on a light table, or light words on
a dark one. Every one of the 22 scored a 5 from every reader. Here are three of the worst
from the first round, the way they looked the second time.
Tie-dye (first round: 1, 1, 1)
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Black words in a white table. Second round: 5.
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Hazard stripes (first round: 1, 1, 1)
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Yellow words in a black table. Second round: 5. The stripes still move around the edge, which Daniel says he could do without.
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Scales (first round: 1, 3, 3)
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Pale words in a black-green table, the way Emmett Crowder recommends in his own smithing notes. Second round: 5.
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The pattern is still there. You can still see your dragons or your tie-dye or your
stripes all around the edges. You've only stopped asking your visitors to read through
them. That's the whole prescription. It costs nothing and it takes one line of HTML.
Credits. Backgrounds 1 to 6 are from the
GeoCities.us clip art library.
Backgrounds 7 to 18: Background from Tilework.
Backgrounds 19 to 22 are from Cloud Nine Angel
Graphics, Lorene's Country Graphics,
The Wyrm's Hoard and
STARPORT. My thanks to all of their makers,
whose work looks a great deal better behind a table than my scores might suggest.
Thanks also to Howard, Allan and Daniel, who gave
up four Tuesday evenings and only complained about the hazard stripes.
GeoCities.us
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