How Website Design Impacts Eye Strain
Surfing the web for hours every day can take a toll on your eyes. Staring at content with extreme contrast (black and white) or minimal contrast (shades of grey) can irritate your eyes and cause strain. Luckily, there are several remedies for eye strain while browsing:
- The 20-20-20 Rule: Take a 20-second break every 20 minutes and look at something 20 feet away.
- Reduce overhead lighting to minimize screen glare.
- Adjust your monitor brightness to a comfortable level.
- Sit further back from your screen.
- Blink more often, take regular breaks, or use corrective glasses if needed.
Design Practices That Reduce Eye Strain
Website designers have adapted in recent years to make reading on screens easier on the eyes. Previously, high-contrast designs (white on black or black on white) and limited font choices often caused discomfort. Today, modern web design focuses on:
- Using dark grey text on light grey backgrounds to reduce extreme contrast.
- Employing Google Fonts such as Quicksand, Rooney, Karla, Roboto, and Montserrat in various weights and sizes.
- Maintaining readable font sizes and allowing users to increase font size easily.
By thoughtfully combining grey tones, accessible font choices, and adjustable font sizes, designers help reduce eye strain for desktop users. Mobile browsing introduces additional challenges, but desktop improvements have made extended reading far easier on the eyes.
Call to Action
If you’d like to improve your website’s readability and user experience, give us a call today at (780) 473-4600!