[lowboy]

Semantics, but the #5e636a (39% lightness) text of Neo4j and #1c1e21 (12% lightness) of RabbitMQ aren't what I would consider _light_ grey. That would be up in the #bbb-eee range, or 75%+ lightness (black 0%, dark grey 25%, grey 50%, light grey 75%, white 100%). And I would be surprised if designers were involved in those 2 documentation sites.

Font weight is a crucial factor of readability, and it depends on screen specifics. On my 2020 M1 mbp at ~40% screen brightness, the NNGroup link quote is quite readable. As it is on my phone.

I don't rate any designer or developer very highly if they're too precious about their "art".

The HN dead/downvoted comments is contentious for sure. I don't agree with the choice fwiw.

[guappa]

Ah you are one of those people who believe nobody in the whole world has worse eyesight or screen or lighting conditions than what you presently have.

[lowboy]

Nope. And not sure how you made the leap there from me giving context into my environment and equipment and how I was perceiving some text on the screen.

[arp242]

I perceive it as "light grey", so shrug.

It's all "readable" in the sense of "I can read it", but not in the sense of "I can read it effortlessly". I have a bit of CSS in Stylus to fix it, and it takes noticeably less effort to read it with a "normal" font. The RabbitMQ menu is just so much easier to scan as well with a more normal colour.

[lowboy]

Good distinction between light grey setting and perception (I was speaking to the former). Maybe on your screen/OS/browser for a given font, a setting of #000 would start at (perceived) “grey”.

And agreed that readability is a scale and it’s best to be on the “easy” end of that scale.