If there is one thing you should do first when implementing a new website design, it should be declaring your background colour. If you do anything else first, stop it. Declare your background colour first.
As I mentioned at Roger Johansson’s website, the mistake that website developers make the most often and that I find the most annoying is failing to declare a background colour.
It is not that I am so naïve as to not know why so many designers make this simple error. In fact, I know exactly why so many do it.
The first clue to knowing why the mistake is made is realising that the majority of website designs out there use white as a background colour. The second clue is realising that most browsers have white as the default background colour. What this means then is that when a designer fails to declare the white background colour for the website but then previews it in the browser, s/he will still see the intended white background and not realise there is no background colour declared.
This type of practice is risky for two reasons. The first reason is that it makes the designer rely too much on what s/he sees in his/her own browser and less on ensuring the code they use is valid (in the generic sense of the word). The second reason is that it gives the impression that the designer is not devoted to checking the site on other systems not like his/her own.
Please, pull up your socks and do better. At the very least, change your browser’s default background colour to something other than white.
For your voyeuristic viewing pleasure, here are some of the guilty parties. Please change your browser’s default background colour to view to something other than white. Neon green will exemplify the design laziness.
This has been a problem for as long as I can remember as well – Netscape 3 and 4 both came with grey set as their default background, if I remember correctly…
Actually, I have always kept grey as my background colour. It ensures that I don’t forget to declare the background colour myself on my webpages.