I know that I’ve written about this before, but I came across the problem again — this time on an otherwise excellent support site. Namely, don’t use low-contrast color schemes for text that customers are supposed to read. Almost dark gray on a sort of white background will always be harder to read than black text on a white background. I don’t understand why designers are still trying to bend the rules when it comes to contrast and readability. But I really wish they’d focus their creative efforts on other areas of the site — areas where trying something new might actually help achieve real business goals. This might mean improving task completion rates, increasing customer satisfaction scores, and other meaningful goals besides just making the application look cool or trendy.