Quote:
Originally Posted by Faterson
Holymadness, you don't know what you're talking about. Textured backgrounds, to me, are crucial, essential for good e-reader usability. They are not an empty effect for effect's sake, and they are no eye candy, although they might appear that way to a superficial observer. You might wish to read what our fellow posters Tacty and Turtle said about this subject a few pages earlier in this thread.
Nothing is more crucial than for your eyes to feel natural while reading a book. If your eyes perceive an unnatural reading environment, they will feel eye-strain sooner rather than later.
And that's exactly what Marvin's current solid-colour backgronds are: they feel unnaturally smooth, too perfect to my eyes, which may contribute to my eyes feeling fatigue sooner than they might, if there had been a textured background instead.
Each of us is different. For many Marvin users, solid-colour backgrounds, the way Marvin offers them now, will be preferable.
For other readers, though, I'm sure structured backgrounds will be preferable. I can't wait till we get to use them in Marvin -- only then will I start feeling fully comfortably, right at home in Marvin.
In case you haven't noticed, holymadness, a traditional book printed on paper, has a structured background, too! Yep -- because that's what natural paper looks like: it has a background structure, too,  albeit very fine. And that's the type of structured backgrounds I like most in e-readers: no gaudy ones, but ones with a delicate, hardly noticeable pattern in them. |
To have presented your case in favour of colourful backgrounds as a personal prejudice, rather than as a question of objective fact, would have at least had the merit of coherence, if still not of being correct.
Writing and reading are artifices that do not exist independently of human contrivance. As they do not exist in nature, they have no natural state. Reading on a backlit screen is no more unnatural than reading on vellum, paper, or stone tablets. One assumes you do not reject Carolingian minuscule because it deviates from the origins of Roman majuscules engraved with styli, nor sans serif mechanical typefaces for their unnaturalness in comparison to handwriting, or else what would you be doing here?
It is a unique lack of self-awareness that can prompt an individual to both promote
black and red textured backgrounds while fulminating against the unnaturalness of a plain white one. Of course, no study has ever concluded that natural textured backgrounds reduce eye strain, though at least one has concluded that it is
more difficult to read light text against a dark background.
So much for what is crucial to you, which we see is either of no, or inferior, benefit. What is crucial for this app is to not descend into design by committee, the end result of which can only be mediocrity.