I’ve heard two schools of thought on black backgrounds.
Some people say that black increases readability by reducing the brightness of the light that you’re staring into. Others say that black is a typical n00b choice and looks amateur.
The site I’m designing right now is yellow text (ffff00) on a black background. I haven’t finalized these choices yet, and before I do, I’d like to put them out to the people who know websites. I wish I could post a link, but I don’t have hosting yet, so it’s on my home server (read: desktop w/ IIS) and I don’t want to DoS myself.
i don’t think its amateurish…in fact i prefer black backgrounds, usually cause I’m online in my room at night when its dark. it all depends on what the site is about/ what if a any customer/ client wants.
I know i could just tell you in person but w.e.
I don’t think a black background is nessisarily bad but i personally prefer white (I think it just looks cleaner) and then you can do like black and yellow accents. btw, be carefull about hosting a server out of your house expecially if your running apache out to the internet… PJ did that and he got a letting for optonline telling him they were going to cut his service if you didn’t take it down
Good Luck… see you monday lol
Optonline would only know if the bandwidth usage got really high, and I’m not really using it for much, so I’m not worried. If I recall, Phill had a domain name set up and quite a few users. I’m mostly using mine for testing and file sharing.
I run a local web server on a Linux computer on my home network that I use to test all my site mods before they go online. There isn’t really any need to open it beyond the local network if that’s your purpose for it. I’m also going to have to get IIS on my Windows machine soon for a class I’m taking this semester (should probably get it before the prof requires it next week), so I’ll have two networked webservers running, but like I said, there’s no need to allow any access to that from the Internet.
<off topic>Yeah, but I’m working with a couple other people who I need to be able to share stuff over the internet with, and it’s so much easier than free hosting, which is just terrible.
</off topic>
i was given a evaluation cuz i special (ed)
and one thing they did was find out what background is best for me is was navy so i guess it can vary
Black is not always a bad decision when it comes to designing websites. At the moment, the main page for Apple’s iPod has a black background with white text, and it looks just fine. It’s all how you use it.
Maybe it’s just me, but I would not use yellow text. Even on a black background, and especially if it is Times New Roman font, yellow text is a nightmare on the eyes. Yellow is the first color processed by the brain, so yellow will always stand out; this is why street signs and modern fire engines engines are yellow. When everything on a page is yellow, your eyes and brain does not know where to focus.
If you like using yellow, I would consider using it for the headings, such as <h1> or <h2>, and use plain white text for the main body text. This way your eyes are drawn right to the headings (e.g. important stuff), while the main body text is easier on the eyes.
Oh yeah, and my opinion on the black backgrounds: I prefer grays and lighter shades that can blend into each other without being noticed much. It’s easier to vary the colors that way and still keep in the background as it should be.
However, I do appreciate the sites that do use black backgrounds if it is appropriate for the content of the site and the target audience. On a robotics site it makes sense, especially for your team colors. Elsewhere, I try to remember that I’m not always a part of that target audience, so even if I don’t like something, it doesn’t mean it’s not good for its purpose, and as long as the site works well I use it all the same.
Thanks for the comments guys. I’ll try to get the current prototype up on geocities or something in the morning, assuming I actually wake up. 
In response to artdutra, I’ve considered my typeface, and I’m not using times new for the reasons you said. It’s too spidery for most web page usage anyway.
Just a side not… But how would you all suggest i use (the dredded 
) Yellow and (royal?) Blue on my team’s website? I’ve always found it is hard to integrate the yellow into the site but I am open for ideas…
If I had to choose between black and yellow for background colors I’d definitely pick black. When we first built my team’s website, our colors were black and “electric blue”. I actually still have a copy of that up at http://www.blarglefish.com/oldsite to compare between old, current, and our new one for this year.
The new site looks much better. The colors on the old site dont look good at all imho.
yeah, i’m a bit of an amateur web designer, but this is pretty decent for a first website. http://205.174.115.19/ (still haven’t gotten a domain for it) the words on the homepage used to be a countdown (haven’t gotten a chance to update). sidenote: can anyone help me with integrating PHP and MySQL with this site. I read a lot, but like i said i am amateur(although i have gotten better w/ graphics than whats on the current site.
Hmmm black background… it really depends on your preference. I prefer white or grey because it looks cleaner. But if you’re going for a “professional” look, black is a lot harder to work with. Though some people can make really awesome layouts that make black work well…
Ummm, did it have a black background and blue text or teal background with pink text? The teal/pink was a testing theme I made for a “Change Theme” thing I was writing in the site.
It’s just like white backgrounds, sure they CAN look bad, but they also look good. It’s all how you design and use it. I like using black background with a lighter area for text.
Last year our teams site had a black background. The background itself was fine, but the text, which was bright yellow and bright purple was hard on the eyes.
We decided against a black background because with the layout we had, it would’ve made anything light stand out so much. If you look closely at http://www.roboraiders.com the background is red with black dots, making it dark. And in the body… well, it overall hard on the eyes to concentrate on the body text (like http://www.blarglefish.com has).
I would say, unless your words are rather bold or big, stay away from black backgrounds.
Try using blue as a background color and yellow as a border and trim color. I always like trim. 
My team has the same colors yellow and blue, http://www.wolvcatrobotics.com/. i think I’ve been able to pull it off quite nicely, check it out.