What's the most appropriate background color for a web page? Why? What is the least fatiguing color for eyes? Loads quickly? Works with other colors? Works for the color blind?
White seems to be best for printing and for load speed, but it can seem pretty harsh on the eyes. Is there a better option?
I'm not sure that some colors load faster than others ;-)
Low vision: high contrast is what's important Color blind: don't use reds with greens
You can have separate print stylesheets..
By simply changing a few numbers in the hex code for white, you can get an equally bright version that provides you with contrast without causing fatigue.
For example, if you find white too stark, try #EFEFEF. Or, if you've got a more pastel-themed webpage, try #FFF6EF.
There are plenty of options. Try visiting a color picker. :)
White
Personally, I don't find it hard on the eyes. I wonder if the contrast with forecolors is what is bothering you.
I also use pastel colors a lot, I find them easy on the eyes.
White is the only color. Really. Look at any major website including this one. It's white. Anything else looks amateurish. Gizmodo is the only major website I can think of that is not white.
To make the site accessible to the visually impaired, The WAI Guidelines would be helpful.
Actually I believe lighter shades of yellow gives a person less eye strain over longer periods of time then other colors. The glasses to reduce computer eye strain have a yellow tint, and that's why legal pads are yellow. But as far as aesthetic value goes its all opinion to a degree.
A couple of examples from my bookmarks of well known non-white sites:
http://forums.whirlpool.net.au/
There aren't many, but it is possible.
My absolute favorite color combination is a background with RGB 20/20/20 (near black) and a foreground with RGB 128/128/128 (silver). This is just the right amount of contrast for viewing the same page for long periods of time. I use this in all my text editors and programming IDEs as well.
Also realize that color alone is not going to paint the full picture. You also need to keep font size and type, spacing, and margins in mind. There's a great article about this at Lighthouse International.
You can use the dated but still quite useful Vischeck tool to see what your web pages look like to users with various types of color blindness.
When you are designing your web site, please, please think of Jackie, Michael, Bill, Lillian, and Marcus.
Something like 90% of the top traffic sites all use white backgrounds....
If you're using a simple color as a background, performance should not be impacted. If it's patterned or an image, then yes performance may be impacted.
Both the color temperature and harmony are factors for a color scheme. Importantly, keep the scheme to a relatively small number of colors. See Choosing Web Design Color Palettes: Color Psychology and Tools for Designing Great Web Sites for a nice summary.
As others have noted, if pure white is too stark, it can be toned down to a subtle grey. Note that limiting your site to browser-safe colors may be important to you as well if cross-browser color consistency is an issue.
Also see Choosing Web Colour Schemes for People with Colour Blindness.
From a usability point of view, you would be kind to allow the user's browser to choose the colors the user prefers. I have found that black text on a white background has worked well for hundreds of years, and with a good adjustment on the monitor, it is quite readable with no eyestrain for six or more hours consecutively. (A quality monitor is key.)
Do let the user choose.
Perhaps viewing a few web design templates will give you an idea. :-)
It really depends on your audience and your page. :-)
BLACK is fastest, because its all zeroes. Any other color needs heavy lifting to transmit those bits over the network, especially WHITE with all its 1s ;)
Besides BLACK is an elegant and hardcore color at the same time, making it the best color of the universe (Why else do you think space is BLACK?). And old-school folk will get that console feeling that makes them yearn for the days of past as a bonus.
So definitely you can't beat BLACK