I bet Zeldman has Good Eye-sight

Zeldman's latest redesign is not that good (*cough*). Either he has more than perfect eye-sight, or he is using a computer with a very high contrast.

He is apparently infected with the "Positive Fantasy Syndrome" - by far the most contagious illness among web-designers. In short it makes the web-designers believe that if they make the site hard enough to see, their readers would make up a fantasy that it is better than it really is.

Blended...
- Zeldman.com

For Zeldman he got infected a long time ago when he introduced his style switchers. Most of them were made with very little font-sizes and blended colors.

I almost thought that he was cured for a short while. Although his redesign with a humongous header did not improve the perception of the content - merely it shouted "THIS IS JEFFREY ZELDMAN'S SITE - GOT IT."

With his May 1st redesign the Positive Fantasy Syndrome took over completely. I have given up trying to read the content - my eyes hurt too much. The light-gray on light gray with light-green on even lighter green added a touch of desaturated light-brownish is not a very pleasant reading experience.

On the positive side, his code is getting better. His latest redesign is the first code that actually completely separates each main elements - making future redesigns easier.

Update: This one gets even funnier. Zeldman launched "Contrast-O-Meter" - a style switcher which will increase the contrast of his site.

Why should the readers spend time adjusting the site before they can start reading it? And, how should they be able to find it when the initial site has so low contrast? - not to mention that it is also hidden behind a strange title.

Read also:

• Positive Fantasy Syndrome (Baekdal.com, 2004)
• Minimum font sizes (Baekdal.com, 2004)
• Things that need to STOP (Good Experience, May 2005)