Stop the Graying of Sites Trend

Wednesday, May 7th, 2008 at 10:00 AM | Category: Blogging, Links, Meryl's Notes Blog, Tech 11 comments

The messages many sites send when they use gray text on a white background is, “We don’t want you to read our content,” “Our content isn’t worth your time,” and “We want you to struggle reading our content because we think black is boring.”

#333333, #666666, #999999, and #cccccc (various shades of gray) are almost black, but not as good as black. Those sites don’t make this list.

It’s an epidemic that I alone can’t stop.

To reward those sites doing it right, they get a mention and a link here. Add your site to the comments section. However, we will check every link. If a site’s text hides in a fog, it will disappear.

Note — this only looks as the contrast between text and background — not the font choice, font size, text formatting style, or design.

  1. Adversity University Blog
  2. Be the Story
  3. Blogcritics
  4. Bob Bly
  5. Book Marketing
  6. The Book Sistah
  7. Caroline Middlebrook
  8. Chronicles of a Mompreneur
  9. D. Keith Robinson
  10. Dosh Dosh
  11. Geekpreneur
  12. Global Neighbourhoods
  13. The Golden Pencil
  14. Graywolf’s SEO Blog (yeah, even the guy with “Gray” in his name passed!)
  15. GTO Management
  16. How Not to Write
  17. InternetVIZ
  18. ISIPP
  19. Melle.ca
  20. Men with Pens
  21. Molly
  22. Niroze
  23. PoeWar Writer’s Resource Center
  24. The Program Witch Pages
  25. Sparkplug CEO
  26. Stowe Boyd
  27. Strategic Public Relations
  28. SuccessCREEations
  29. Verge New Media
  30. Writer’s Helper

You wouldn’t believe how many sites I looked at before my eyes begged me to stop. List is disappointingly short.

Moral: Black on white is NOT boring. It’s readable.

P.S. I skipped those with different colors because they may not be readable to those with various forms of color blindness.

Tags: , , , ,

Text Sucker Speaks Volumes

Tuesday, February 5th, 2008 at 7:46 AM | Category: Business, Links, Meryl's Notes Blog, Tech, Writing No comments

Netdisaster, an online toy/application, creates a disaster of your choice to a Web site. A great way to get that frustration with a Web site or company out of your system.

The site is a valuable tool for writers. Use the “text sucker” option, enter a Web address, and Go. Give the vacuum a moment to do its job (very cool effect). The result displays the Web page without text. Sure, a picture can say a 1000 words, but not in the case of most Web sites.

After all, “A word is worth a 1000 pictures,” says Jeff Sexton. He teases readers with his headline of “1000 tips for selling online without paying a copywriter.” The tip? Hire a copywriter times 1000. Don’t shoot the messenger.

Check out Yahoo! below after text sucker does its job.

yahoo sucked.thumbnail Text Sucker Speaks Volumes

Tags: , , ,

Subscribe to this here blog: RSS or E-mail

Get Updates