Text-background color combination of digital media for legibility and visual quality

Abstract

The purposes of this study were to find out the popular colors for using as text and background of digital media on the computer screen and to determine the text-background color combination affecting the legibility and visual quality. The popular colors were chosen by graphic designers and the optimum text-background color combinations were selected from the sampling group of undergraduate students. The samples of 55 colors included of 10 hues with 5 values each and neutral color with 5 values, referring to Munsell color system. The results revealed that 10 favorite colors applied for text and background design were yellow, red, reddish purple, black, blue, light reddish purple, greenish yellow, orange, bluish green and white, respectively. Male and female had slightly different satisfaction on the background colors of red, reddish purple and blue. The black texts on the light background or the white texts on the dark background were the best in legibility but not attractive. The warm color of texts; yellow, red, and reddish purple, on the contrast background were better in legibility and vision quality than did the cool color of texts on the warm color of background.