Background Graphics

Background graphics can be used for your overall page, for portions of tables, or for individual paragraphs (using stylesheets). Here are things to consider when using backgrounds.

Background images should have very low contrast. You can put light text on a dark background, or dark text on a light background, but if the background has both light and dark parts then no text will work well over top of it. You want the background to go to all black or all white on a black and white monitor.
Set your background colour for the page or table so it matches the background image as closely as possible. Otherwise, if you have light text on a dark background, and I turn images off, I'll see unreadable light text on the default white or light gray background.
The background image should not contain words. It is hard to read words over top of other words, especially for people with cognitive disabilities.
The latest web browsers allow animated background images. Be very careful with these, as the animation makes foreground text even harder to read.
Make sure your background image is at least 100 pixels wide or 100 pixels high. Some web browers do not properly display background images that are less than 100 pixels in both width and height.

Please send comments about this course to Kevin.Lowey@Usask.CA