According to my cursory study, ergonomic research leaves out many variables and settings.
Do you know research validating or contracting these claims:
- light text on dark background in dark room better
- dark text in light background in bright room is better
- light text on dark background is better when refresh rate is low
- the font size changes the situation.
My personal experience after some testing is that light on dark with slightly larger monospace font that 'feels right' [1] leads to fastest long term reading and comfort. Also light on dark background is always better in dark room. Otherwise dark on light is better. Back in a day when we all had low resolution CRT monitors font size was large for everyone and light on dark was common.
[1] If I just sit in a monitor and set up my programming environment I settle to text size that I can read well but is still relatively small. It seems reasonable that you want to see more text. But if I choose little bigger font than what 'feels' right I can read faster. Large font, light on dark background seems optimal.
Do you know research validating or contracting these claims:
- light text on dark background in dark room better
- dark text in light background in bright room is better
- light text on dark background is better when refresh rate is low
- the font size changes the situation.
My personal experience after some testing is that light on dark with slightly larger monospace font that 'feels right' [1] leads to fastest long term reading and comfort. Also light on dark background is always better in dark room. Otherwise dark on light is better. Back in a day when we all had low resolution CRT monitors font size was large for everyone and light on dark was common.
[1] If I just sit in a monitor and set up my programming environment I settle to text size that I can read well but is still relatively small. It seems reasonable that you want to see more text. But if I choose little bigger font than what 'feels' right I can read faster. Large font, light on dark background seems optimal.