Choose A Background Image With Lots Of Contrast
That's right. Exactly right. Don't choose some boring, uninteresting background image. Pick something flashy and colorful. And not just colorful, but something with lots and lots of contrast.Why? Because if there are lots of contrasting colors in your background image, the text doesn't stand out nearly as well, making it impossible read. Nothing will make your visitors leave the site quickly like text they can't even read.
Notice, that even though the background image on this page doesn't have any yellow in it, the text is still hard to read. Why is that? It's because our eyes are drawn to the edges in the image, as much as they are drawn to the edges in the letters.
In other words, our minds get confused, trying to figure out whether the edge we are looking at belongs to the letters or the background image.
To make matters even worse, notice that the image on this page doesn't "wrap" vertically. In other words, the bottom of the image doesn't match the top of the image, so when the image is "tiled" (repeated across and down the page) there is a vertical seam. Very annoying.
Now, let me show you another background image. This one is on a site that people visit again and again and again. The site is The Problem Site.
Notice that the text inside this box is easy to read, even though there is a background image. Why? Because this image has no sharp edges, and there is very little contrast between the different shapes in the image. In fact, you might even have to look closely to even see that there is a background image! Can you see the playing card? The coin? The pencil? The paper-clip? It's all in there, but it doesn't jump out at you. What a boring image! Of course, visitors can read the text in this box, but who cares about that?? |