Green on yellow is best for readability 10 Apr 2007

That's right. According to a readability study performed by Alyson L. Hill from the Department of Psychology at Stephen F. Austin State University, green text on a yellow background is better than good old black-and-white when it comes to web readability (Take a look at the paper itself for an example of the green-on-yellow colour combination in action).

Other findings from HIll's research include:

• Green on yellow is the best colour scheme in the most conditions - except for italicised Arial, for which it's the worst.
• Times New Roman on average is much better than Arial. (Surprising when you consider that most usability experts recommend san-serif fonts for on-screen reading).
• The combination which gives the fastest response time is italicised (!) green Times New Roman on yellow background.
• Black-on-grey is much faster to parse than black-on-white.

Interesting stuff!

[via Metalink]