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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

#151

Post by crazygringo »

Wowfunhappy wrote: post #148

The recent trend of introducing separate "light" and "dark" modes is a band-aid solution to the larger problem: modern interfaces lack contrast. Everything is either mostly-bright or mostly-dark, and I find both physically tiring. I was playing around with a virtualized copy of Snow Leopard last weekend. Coming from modern macOS, what I find most visually striking is always the range of tones. The beautifully deep gr…

That's a great point -- before Microsoft introduced "flat design" which everyone else then copied (both Apple and Google), there was both a lot more variation in background colors and varied usage of color generally.

I understand and sympathize with the philosophy behind flat design -- that it intentionally puts the interface in the background (low contrast, less variation), so whatever content you're consuming (photos, videos, book text) is the focus.

But I also sympathize with your point -- that when you want to use the interface to do stuff rather than merely scroll through content, it's simply harder now.

Re: Dark Mode by Default – 95% of People Prefer Dark over Light Mode

#152

Post by RobLach »

ARandomerDude wrote: post #147
AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I've noticed that most techies do prefer dark mode, and I also recall reading that techies are disproportionately night owls - I wonder if there's a correlation there. If I may be mildly unflattering for a moment, I think it's just a trendiness thing. Dark Mode looks more like a terminal and signals "I'm a real big-boy hackerman" or something. If someone has real data showing it actually causes less eyestrain or so…

Disagree. I work remotely so nobody ever sees my screen except for me. I prefer dark mode because it's more comfortable on my eyes.

Dark mode objectively is more straining on the eyes though, so it must be more of a psychological preference.

Re: Dark Mode by Default – 95% of People Prefer Dark over Light Mode

#153

Post by sojmq »

whack wrote: post #10

It 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 haven't read the article but the Discord light mode is TERRIBLE. Terrible contrast and half the interface remains in dark mode. That's why I don't use it. Otherwise I would. So it's kinda forced dark mode for Discord. That stat can not be trusted.

https://i.redd.it/qre9cvey3r0z.png

Re: Dark Mode by Default – 95% of People Prefer Dark over Light Mode

#154

Post by mjw1007 »

iforgotpassword wrote: post #122
AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I've noticed that most techies do prefer dark mode, and I also recall reading that techies are disproportionately night owls - I wonder if there's a correlation there. If I may be mildly unflattering for a moment, I think it's just a trendiness thing. Dark Mode looks more like a terminal and signals "I'm a real big-boy hackerman" or something. If someone has real data showing it actually causes less eyestrain or so…

Agree on the trend thing. Even older research supports the claim that black on white is easier on the eyes, this is why we switched away from white on black (DOS and UNIX). This applies to screens in well lit environments though, which would explain the rise of the dark mode in recent years: Smartphones in bed. But there it's more about the "less bad" solution. The key part is having a well lit environment, so that t…

I think the switch to black-on-white when GUIs first appeared was largely because the prototypical application was a word processor, where the selling point was that what you saw on the screen looked like what you were going to print on paper.

Other applications, like spreadsheets, ended up with a lot of the the same printer-oriented design. It showed up in things like font sizes in points (which are nominally length units, but were usually based on some fixed notional dpi rather than matching the size on the physical screen).

Re: Dark Mode by Default – 95% of People Prefer Dark over Light Mode

#155

Post by jeromenerf »

crazygringo wrote: post #107

Dark mode is great when you're using a screen casually close to bedtime and don't want a painful bright light. It's also great when you're doing image or video editing and need to be able to see full contrast in the dark areas, without being overwhemlmed by bright light surrounding. But it's objectively far worse if you're reading significant amounts of text, for the simple optical reason that light bleeds inside of…

Pixmap / raster fonts, with no antialiasing, at a somewhat large size are great light on dark.

White on dark with fuzzy fonts on non hidpi screens is terrible indeed.

Re: Dark Mode by Default – 95% of People Prefer Dark over Light Mode

#156

Post by NauticalStu »

I wish there were more "medium" themes.

I usually find light modes too harsh, but I think that's because the background is often pure white or close to it, as opposed to something softer.

I think dark modes look cooler and I like the aesthetic from an artsy perspective, but they're not something I enjoy working in all day. I like the lower contrast ones to an extent, but they're still not ideal.

My preferred Visual Studio theme has been Humane, which is one of the rare ones that fall somewhere in between. I tweaked it to make it a tad darker, but was fairly happy with it out of the box. In any case, I feel like these kinds of themes are underrepresented; there is an overwhelming number of dark and light themes out there (mostly tweaks of other themes, or just plain bad) and I really wish more would aim for the middle ground. Largely because I'm actually not a fan of the color brown and would like to see a semi-light theme based on something else, haha.

https://damieng.com/blog/2007/10/14/colour-schemes-for-visua...

Re: Dark Mode by Default – 95% of People Prefer Dark over Light Mode

#157

Post by eddyg »

The Dark Side of Dark Mode https://tidbits.com/2019/05/31/the-dark-side-of-dark-mode/

"To summarize, a dark-on-light (positive polarity) display like a Mac in Light Mode provides better performance in focusing of the eye, identifying letters, transcribing letters, text comprehension, reading speed, and proofreading performance, and at least some older studies suggest that using a positive polarity display results in less visual fatigue and increased visual comfort. The benefits apply to both the young and the old, as that paper concludes"

Re: Dark Mode by Default – 95% of People Prefer Dark over Light Mode

#158

Post by yorwba »

whycombagator wrote: post #113
lloeki wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Light backgrounds on screens, especially white, tend to hurt my eyes more than darker ones It was (and still is, but read on) for me until I realised that it was not light mode but backlight that was too strong. It was actually initially better with dark modes, low contrast stuff like zenburn, or (solarize light or dark) but only got worse later. The moment I realised that was a backlight (and ambient light, includ…

I usually have the brightness on all my devices very low (10-20% typically, but have to go 100% if I’m outside and it’s particularly bright). I also use f.lux/nightmode on all devices.

I usually have my phone at 0% brightness, but that I can still see something is a clear indication it's not actually 0%. The screen is still too bright for me if it's the only light source. Same for audio; I basically only switch between mute and minimum volume because everything above is too loud for me.

I hate that there's no way to acess more fine-grained levels below the arbitrarily imposed minimum. I realize most people would think their phone is broken if they could get it into a state where it doesn't produce any perceivable output despite not being explicitly off. I just wish there were some secret handshake I could use to confirm that I'm okay with having to find the brightness control while not being able to see anything; I already do that when I'm outside in the bright sun.

Re: Dark Mode by Default – 95% of People Prefer Dark over Light Mode

#159

Post by slazaro »

kleer001 wrote: post #21

Personally I can't stand dark mode. It literally hurts my eyes. Strain after a few moments and interlacing ghost lines that linger in my vision for a minute. Does anyone else have this? Is it brain cancer?! edit: Thanks, I'm pretty sure it's not cancer. Question: But why me? Age? Staring too long at monitors? Drugs? It doesn't seem to effect too many others.

I think I read it has to do with having astigmatism. Which I have, and I also prefer light mode for the reasons you state.
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