Not a fan. Is there an option to change it somewhere?

custom css always works...

Pardon my ignorance, but I have no idea what you are talking about.

depending on the browser you use, there are ways to modify the stylesheet of a website, for example the background image...just search for "yourbrowser custom css", I know that it's possible at least in firefox and probably in chrome and the others too, there might be extensions so simplify that...

replacing

"background: #0063be url(/images/bluey/background_dark.png) repeat-x center 0;"

with

"background: #fff;"

should work, e.g. using cqstyle CSS editor for Chrome

as in http://skrit.appspot.com/css/base+live.347953808650424149.css

I don't mind it, but the text for the funny quotes at the bottom of the page need to be lighter now.

Yeah, hurts my eyes. I suppose it converts more on the landing page but on the practice page it hurts on the long time.

not a fan either

We'll run a poll. It did convert better on front-facing pages.

I don't mind the darker blue that much, but unless I have Chrome set to about 144% zoom then some of the text on the top/bottom is a bit difficult to focus on.

I don't like it at all.

yes, it's true, most of the (little font) text on the upper right part of the screen is pratically unreadeable...

And more, I think practicing is a pretty... "fragile" activity: everything not strictly necessary may easily turn into something diminishing your attention...

Please, at least, make an option to come back to the old foreground; it was so pleasant, so neutral, it did not interfere at all with anything; why have it to be changed??


M.

If you are using Chrome or Firefox you can override chosen parts of the style sheets. The style sheet is here in windows: %AppData%\Local\Google\Chrome\User Data\Default\User StyleSheets

and in Linux: /.config/google-chrome/Default/User StyleSheets

Just add e.g. this text to the file:

body {

background: #66cccc !important ;
}

This gives an light green background. You can add a picture, or any color as well. Drawback? Yes, this applies to every page you visit. The !important part of the text is what forces your settings to take precedence. I use this for now. I also play with this to get characters etc magnified.

Poll results are starting to indicate we should just change it back, as almost half of the people don't like it, and not a few people hate it. Oh, well.

Its not that its bad on all pages.

I like it on some, but hate on others. There was no poll answer for that.

But black text on dark blue background is a disaster.

Text should always be high contrast dark on light.

It's early in the morning and my eyes hurt from the "super blue". :(

for chrome, you can download the "personalized web" extension, and then add a rule for the skritter page(s), and set whatever background color you desire and save the settings so it will automatically override the ugly blue

The poll is now actually showing an even 50/50 split! Maybe a built-in option to choose the color (maybe eventually other colors like green, grey, etc. as well) would be preferable so everyone is happy (I know you can go the custom css route, but I doubt most people know how/will bother learning).

My 5 cents would be for some background settings that will allow to switch (back/force), calling it "color scheme" probably :)

Huh, to me the previous bg looked nicer, but maybe I was just too used to it in the two months of skrittering :)

I think a blue gradient cold work, however the current colours convey a kind of kid/child feel. I would suggest using all blues out of a palette such as this:

http://www.pantone.com/pages/MYP_myPantone/mypPaletteDetail.aspx?p_id=678&p_type=p_detail

If it ain't broke, don't fix it. I don't really understand what prompted the change, and agree with those who are saying they find it really distracting. At the risk of sounding like a whiner, of all the things to mess with/worry about when it comes to Skritter, this seems like something really random to change.

I agree with Laurenziano- studying is an activity that requires as few distractions as possible. A bright blue, "Hey! Look at me! Hey, over here!" background seems totally counterproductive in that regard. And really, alienating as many as fifty percent of users by changing something that (to my knowledge) no one was complaining about doesn't seem helpful. I understand that there are plugins and such that one can use to force the background to a more neutral color, but seriously, should we really have to?

I dunno, a part of me is starting to feel like the Skritter I found so useful a couple of years ago ago when I first discovered it is becoming a victim of its own success with all of these random tweaks. Sometimes simplicity is the way to go. On the bright side, at least the background color isn't actively interfering with my study the way the overhaul of the organizational interface did.

I'm amused at the range of responses / poll results. I imagine that if you had changed the background to a mix of plaid and polka-dots some people would say they love the change, and if you made no change at all but said that you had some people would be saying they hate the new background.

That said, I am curious as to what prompted the change.

We make a lot of tweaks that existing users don't notice to the front-facing portions of the site, trying to better explain what Skritter is and attract new users to it. It doesn't take very long to set up an A/B test, and we let the tests run for a while and see if they make any difference (most don't).

This just happened to be one test we thought of that had a slight positive impact. (A user had suggested a darker background design a while ago.) The test was successful and I said, "Why not change it for existing users, too? They might like it better also." George predicted people would flip out. Turns out he predicted better than I. So we'll change it back. Sorry for all the hassle, guys. I prefer the old background, too.

if you wanna new users - get some help from us, guys ;)
we can tag you on facebook or so, or write some good words about you etc etc

We've splattered happy user testimonials around three of the front-facing pages, so that's a big help. If you'd like to attract other users to Skritter, everyone wins using our referral system, where you and the person you refer get extra free time:

http://www.skritter.com/referral

Statuses in FB/Twitter (for example) may bring a decent exposure. From there, the front page matters.

Also, there are lots of China/Japan-related blogs. For example, I read magazeta.com daily (Russian-speaking resource). You can try to get to their readers some promotion code, so they will write some cool article about Skritter. I think that one of the main probs is supplying a credit card details during the registration, though. I am sure there are looots of other sites on the Internet to get exposed on.