Was Your Website Designed For Darth Vader?

...are fundamentally about optimism, the belief that technology can be used in service of a brighter future for humanity, whether that’s cleaner water to drink, healthier air to breathe, or exploration of the cosmos in search of new discoveries.

Why then would you want an investor’s or customer’s first visual of your idea to be enshrouded in digital, airless, blackness that dominates the background of your website?

Look, I get it. Black became cool the moment James Dean donned a leather jacket, and today, every trend is advertised as “the new black.” 

However, from our earliest days, society instills in us to be suspicious of what might be in the dark. There’s an entire movie genre built around that premise. We learn that the black hat symbolizes the villain. Death is symbolized by black. It’s why political ad makers shroud the opponent in dark hues. 

Research shows that up to 90% of snap judgments about products stem from color alone, which is why every time I see a website dominated by black pixels, I hear Darth Vader breathing in the back of my head.

You might think your first-of-a-kind technology is space age (and maybe it is), but that doesn’t mean that’s how an investor or customer sees it. In fact, a black themed website works against you in two ways:

1. Psychologically, you are surrounding your technology with visual cues that research associates with danger and negative emotional interpretation rather than openness and trust.
2. It’s making it harder for them to read whatever is on your website.

In an era where successfully raising tens to hundreds of millions to scale your technology in climate, water, robotics, and space is already a low percentage proposition, and where customers for your solution are generally a small subset of a small subset, why would you put up additional hurdles to clear by making them unconsciously doubt you?

Investors and customers aren't evaluating a product they already understand. They're trying to decide whether an unfamiliar technology deserves their attention, confidence and ultimately their capital. Every design decision should reduce uncertainty, not add to it. If your website leaves visitors working harder to understand—or trust—what they're seeing, you've made an already difficult job even harder.

In the interest of fairness, it’s true that dark themes (what your web designer uses as the template for your website) emits less blue light, which has been associated with disrupted sleep cycles when exposed during the evening, and because black or near-black colors save battery because fewer pixels need to be light up, dark themes can expand battery life while reducing light pollution and reduced heat generation. So like most things about life, black isn’t all bad. 

However, in addition to subtly telling your audience that you’re untrustworthy, black backgrounds for websites limit the colors you can use for your brand identity (logo), the appearance of the icons of your accelerators, investors, grant makers, and customers who validate your technology, and make it harder for people with accessibility issues. 

And while not everyone has accessibility issues, people scan websites. They scroll. They browse on the go, especially if they are on a smartphone. In one famous study, “visual fatigue” was significantly greater when subjects read light characters against a dark background vs. dark characters on a light background.

This human preference predates computer screens by about 35,000 years to the caveman days. Drawings of sabre-toothed tigers and Wooly Mammoths were drawn with charcoal or burnt bones against light backgrounds.

Are black websites always bad? No, especially if you’re an architect, fashion designer or premium watch maker. But prioritizing a futuristic aesthetic over clear communication in an industry that’s trying to inspire hope is contrary to your objective.

In the words of Master Yoda, “If Once You Start Down The Dark Path, Forever Will It Dominate Your Destiny.”