Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

getpolarized.io

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

171–180 of 234 posts

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

#171

Post by elwell »

codetrotter wrote: post #99
__s wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 3…

I would pay good money for this.

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

#172

Post by inciampati »

RobLach wrote: post #152
ARandomerDude wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It's a matter of practice. I find light backgrounds unbearable in thr nails on chalkboards sense. After looking at one the rest of the environment looks dark and off. I can't make the backlight dim enough for them to be comfortable. With dark backgrounds and light text, I feel the device to be a more natural part of the surroundings. It's not glowing nearly as much and is emitting only the light that's needed to communicate the information I need.

If you are talking about research based on modern oled devices then I'd love to read it. Maybe I'm weird.

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

#173

Post by b3kart »

dageshi wrote: post #101
AlexandrB wrote: post #30

People 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 modes are a lot easier on the eyes if you spend a lot of time infront of screens and to greater and lesser extent everybody spends lots of time infront of screens nowadays. That being said, I have pretty good luck with browser plugins that auto dark mode websites reasonably well. I'm not sure I'd go redesigning the entire web with darkmodes in mind when plugins can do a good enough job.

> Dark modes are a lot easier on the eyes if you spend a lot of time infront of screens

[citation needed]. Why do people keep making these general statements. Every time they do counter-examples immediately appear in replies. Why can't we all agree that we're all different and it's largely a matter of preference.

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

#174

Post by rsynnott »

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.

Astigmatism, possibly? IIRC, dark mode is worse for most users (though they may not notice it, and the placebo effect is powerful in this sort of subjective rating) but it's particularly bad for people with severe astigmatism.

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

#175

Post by pmahoney »

yorwba wrote: post #158
whycombagator wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 mos…

On my phone running iOS, in addition to the brightness slider there is an option under Settings -> General -> Accessibility Display Accommodations to "Reduce White Point", which I can use to further dim the screen.

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

#176

Post by b3kart »

peterfisher wrote: post #16

this is frustrating because I have diplopia and so my life looks like: https://i.imgur.com/IHWBflS.png when you have white text on a black background. This affect doesn't happen on "light" mode systems...

As a person with an eye condition that also makes things look like that (and worse), it took me a while to see what's wrong with this image.

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

#177

Post by sm4rk0 »

yorwba wrote: post #158
whycombagator wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 mos…

If you're on Android, you can use Dimmer to go below minimum brightness:

https://f-droid.org/app/giraffine.dimmer

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

#178

Post by b3kart »

mmanfrin wrote: post #134

I wish I could make the general internet dark mode (and I've tried extensions, they don't work all that well). Give me a dark mode HN. White backgrounds hurt my eyes. I'm looking at screens upwards of 16 hours a day, let me reduce some of that strain.

> I'm looking at screens upwards of 16 hours a day

I wonder why white backgrounds hurt your eyes...

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

#179

Post by rsynnott »

dpcan wrote: post #26

I don't know many people my age who can still handle dark mode. It was easy for me many years ago. I looked at command lines all day and no problem. Now I see blurry lines for 10 minutes all around me if I have to spend any length of time in a command line interface, or look at an article in dark mode. This is, unfortunately, an accessibility issue, not a design issue.

> in a command line interface

It's perfectly reasonable to use dark-on-light in a terminal emulator; Apple's one defaults to it, for instance.

Post reply on HN