Our last poll asked readers whether they preferred light or dark backgrounds in blog design. The results were:
The majority like ‘Light’ backgrounds but a fair chunk of readers think it depends upon the blog design.
Written on 5/19/2009 at 7:12 am by
Light or Dark Blog Backgrounds? [POLL RESULTS]
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My name is Darren Rowse and I’m a full time Blogger making a living from blogs like 
I’m happy coz the background of my site is white. yipee!
To be fair, this is a blog with a white background, which results in sampling bias because people who “always [read] dark” backgrounded blogs are much less likely to respond as they will probably not visit this blog. You also have to take into account non response bias… take these results with a grain of salt.
i prefer light really because dark just turns me off, and its much harder to read.
http://www.machinez.blogspot.com
Personally, I feel the light backgrounds have the advantage of being readable right away. A lot of dark background blogs and sites seem to take a long time to load before being readable. The background seems to fill in first, then the text pops up in lighter text. This takes too long for my taste.
I once wrote about this topic and had a commenter go absolutely ballistic about my favoring dark text on a light background. He kept saying it was akin to staring at a light bulb. My thought was “Dude, you aren’t wearing my eyeballs, so how do you know how they feel?” Oy.
This is interesting as we can know the majority of people’s choice of visiting and hang around based on the layout and background of the color. But i do think dark color also has advantages especially on several particular niche and topic. I love to read the contents.
As far as user friendliness goes, white or light backgrounds are always easier to read, and it’s what is most popular amongst the general public. Think about some of the most popular sites on the internet, they all have white backgrounds with grey or blue highlights. Of course there’s a place for darker themes but it really does depend on the site and audience that the site hopes to appeal to.
I’m interested in seeing a poll on Light or Dark e-commerce sites instead of blog sites.