Are there any efforts to standardize a way to default to a dark color scheme if a website has it?
Dark Mode by Default – 95% of People Prefer Dark over Light Mode
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Re: Dark Mode by Default – 95% of People Prefer Dark over Light Mode
#92People like novelty. Dark mode is something new in UX design. I'm not sure I'd read into it any more than that until a few more years pass.
Dark mode toggles in applications and websites is kind of new (not really, but it's been popularized recently), but system-wide theming with dark themes has been around for a long time.
Re: Dark Mode by Default – 95% of People Prefer Dark over Light Mode
#93I think the rise of dark mode is mostly related to really good displays. Dark mode looks like shit on CRTs and even older flat panels with poor contrast.
I used to dislike dark backgrounds, but now I have several apps set to dark mode. But going way back to the 80s, terminals were mostly dark mode. CRTs mostly looked terrible with bright backgrounds until the Mac. I don't know if my own change in preference is due to underlying change in screen technology, or something else. Screen time might affect it too -- maybe people prefer light mode when they're only on-screen…
I think about the default IRIX UIs from the mid-90s[1, 2]. These were embraced by a professional subset of users that likely paid attention to detail and wanted minimal distraction from their work, however subtle it might be.
Dark UIs likely made ghosting more prominent on CRTs, either because of crosstalk on a D-SUB cable or because of "spillover" of bright elements of a UI into a nearby dark field. I agree with your sentiment that technological change has made this possible.
Tangentially, I wanted to mention a hue shift that I've noticed that that all UIs seem to flow through. I will take the evolution of Aqua for example. UIs seem to start off with some variant of lighter blue or green (10.0) that eventually iterates into a darker but more saturated form of itself (10.4). Eventually, we start getting hints of purple (10.5, 10.6). When purple starts to come through, there are really no colours to introduce and designers usually decide it's time for a UI overhaul. I would love to hear others' takes on this.
[1] http://i.imgur.com/Lzlbyp9.jpg [2] http://retronet.altervista.org/retronet/ss/ss_irix_shake.png
Re: Dark Mode by Default – 95% of People Prefer Dark over Light Mode
#94I switch back and forth from time to time. For a while I like dark until I get bored with it. Then I switch to light until I get bored.
Re: Dark Mode by Default – 95% of People Prefer Dark over Light Mode
#95In the old days, apps simply used the system color scheme. That allowed one to globally choose what they wanted. Now everyone has to implement light and dark “skinz.” Color me not impressed.
Users also expect prettier designs than the standard GUI widgets from the OS nowadays. Custom themes also could lead to ugly visuals in apps and accessibility problems.
Not really. Designers expect prettier designs than standard GUI widgets, I'm not convinced users have ever wanted non-standard widgets. In fact, more than a decade of bitching-about-java has taught me that users hate non-native widgets. But hey, developers love them so fuck users.
Native widgets play significantly better with all accessibility tools, in part because native widgets are so customizable. You didn't need bespoke "Dark Mode" that was some designer's wet dream of what an interface should look like, you could just customize your widgets for what you needed: https://66.media.tumblr.com/19cb7fe3e0eef36debbd0167d6e6e0ea...
Re: Dark Mode by Default – 95% of People Prefer Dark over Light Mode
#96In the old days, apps simply used the system color scheme. That allowed one to globally choose what they wanted. Now everyone has to implement light and dark “skinz.” Color me not impressed.
Users also expect prettier designs than the standard GUI widgets from the OS nowadays. Custom themes also could lead to ugly visuals in apps and accessibility problems.
Do they though? I've had several family members buy Windows 10 PCs and they specifically requested I 'install Windows XP on it' (install Classic shell + a few other utilities to make the shell look more like Luna or Aero depending on the requestor)
I'd say users expect things to look like what they are used to, whatever that user-specific preference is.
Anecdotes not data etc.
Re: Dark Mode by Default – 95% of People Prefer Dark over Light Mode
#97I don't like dark mode.
Re: Dark Mode by Default – 95% of People Prefer Dark over Light Mode
#98It seems that their data is mostly coming from their own user base (the discord data is biased as they admitted), which is mostly comprised of programmers and other techies. I don't know how far this generalizes to the rest of society. I personally like dark mode during night time, but almost always prefer light mode by default. There's just something about dark mode that is... gloomy and depressing. It feels like an…
> I recall reading that techies are disproportionately night owls
A "night owl" is someone who enjoys being awake and active at night more than the average person, but most people who describe themselves as "night owls" still spend most of their waking hours during the day, especially when they are working, especially if they work in software development at a normal 9-5 job.
Re: Dark Mode by Default – 95% of People Prefer Dark over Light Mode
#99It seems that their data is mostly coming from their own user base (the discord data is biased as they admitted), which is mostly comprised of programmers and other techies. I don't know how far this generalizes to the rest of society. I personally like dark mode during night time, but almost always prefer light mode by default. There's just something about dark mode that is... gloomy and depressing. It feels like an…
I'm not a night owl. I prefer dark mode. It matters when you're staring at a screen for more than 12 hours a day
What we really really need is cheap, high resolution, fast refresh eInk displays.
I’m talking 27 inch, 4K resolution, color (even just 4096 colors might be enough for a lot of software development work) monitors running at 60Hz or higher, with eInk technology and backlight that can be dialed all the way from full brightness to no backlight at all, which should be sold at a price somewhere between the same and 2x to 3x or 4x the price of what LED displays of similar size and specs currently cost today.
I hope we may see that on the market one day.
Re: Dark Mode by Default – 95% of People Prefer Dark over Light Mode
#100I only have a few apps on my old Mac that have a dark mode UI. Pixelmator is one of them and the small tool windows blend into each other and it's hard for me to discern their boundaries. And I strain with the tiny text on them. I really wish it had an option to turn that off and rarely use it because I can't.
I don't like it at all. Makes me wonder if it's because I'm getting old and my vision isn't aa sharp as it used to be.
My main monitor has a "low blue light" setting that I do like though. It took me a bit to get used to it but I can really feel the difference if I turn it off now. I've since adjusted my two peripheral monitors to lower the blue light settings and that's helped reduce eye strain a lot for me.