---
title: Some thoughts on website design
author: Issa Rice
created: 2023-02-17
date: 2023-02-17
---

some recurring thoughts i've had about web design:

- most websites that have text centered in the middle also leave the sides white. this tends to hurt my eyes because there is too much light. on this website i've been careful to make the sides a specific shade of gray that is not so light that it hurts my eyes with brightness but not so dark that if i later look at a light thing it hurts my eyes (dark mode tends to hurt my eyes in this way so i don't like it). similarly, a white background tends to hurt my eyes a little, so i like the solarized light color for the main body background.
- wide text is good on websites where a lot of scanning and jumping around is required (like wikipedia), but narrower text is good on websites where the reader just linearly reads. i think this website is more towards the latter -- i want to create a certain experience for readers. but actually my website has a bunch of different types of pages, which suggests altering the design based on the type of page. but i fear this will be too confusing to most readers.
- i should probably bring back styling toggles for readers so they can make certain basic changes to the site design to suit their needs. but it was kind of a pain to maintain so i gave up. (it's still available on certain pages like the [portfolio page](https://issarice.com/portfolio))
- sticky banners of all kinds are terrible unless there is a very specific reason it is needed (this site has no such need).