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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

#201

Post by chipotle_coyote »

volkl48 wrote: post #196
chipotle_coyote wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most of the data that I've found suggests that dark text on a light background is measurably more legible than the reverse. This effect is increased for people with astigmatism -- which is about half the population, so that's not insignificant. There's a lot of pushback I've seen when studies like that get cited: they're old, they weren't about programmers, etc. And, maybe, but even though we're staring at LCD panels…

I imagine you don't know the answer, but I'm curious as to if these studies were controlled for screen glare. Dark themes/backgrounds have far worse issues with screen glare from badly configured room lighting than light ones do in my experience. ----- I'm also curious why another area of design that is extremely concerned with legibility seems to have reached the opposite conclusion, pretty much worldwide. Road sign…

You are correct, I don't know if they controlled for screen glare. :)

The road signs are an interesting question. I know there's a lot of work, and occasional controversy, over the typefaces used. If I had to hazard a guess for the color choices, though, it might be the signs have to be very visible in the dark, too -- that's now generally done by using reflective paint for the light part of the sign, but older highway signs, at least in America, used reflective dots in the letters. So that might be a tradition born less out of legibility studies than practicality.

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

#202

Post by sm4rk0 »

yorwba wrote: post #190
sm4rk0 wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you're on Android, you can use Dimmer to go below minimum brightness: https://f-droid.org/app/giraffine.dimmer

Thanks for the recommendation. Seems like it renders a partially transparent overlay to simulate a lower brightness setting. The notification bar remains unaffected, but I guess it's better than nothing.

Yes. Beware of two things:

1. It can block "Install" button when installing apks from outside of Play Store. Disable it

2. Latest commit is 4 years ago. But I've still chosen it over Red Moon because it's more than 10x smaller (336kB but still very configurable).

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

#203

Post by antonyh »

void445be54d48a wrote: post #49
memossy wrote: post #34

Left shift + left alt + PrtSc = dark mode for word and all sorts via high contrast mode on Windows

High contrast mode is not dark mode.

It makes web pages like HN dark (in FF). I don't get why it takes so long to do it though, so toggling it is frustrating, and the side effects are pretty horrific as it throws boxes around everything.

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

#204

Post by kleer001 »

jrockway wrote: post #37
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.

It's not brain cancer but rather an artifact of how the eye/brain system works. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Afterimage

Honestly, that's more of what I think. I figure I get a higher activation of my edge detection neurons. Somehow.

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

#205

Post by officeplant »

whycombagator wrote: post #79
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…

I'm sure everyone has their own specific reasons. And what you suggest might be true for a subset of individuals. For me, I prefer dark mode for a couple of sight related reasons: - It makes my eye floaters much harder to notice - Light backgrounds on screens, especially white, tend to hurt my eyes more than darker ones

White backgrounds make for so much distraction when it comes to eye floaters for me as well.

For me it's nice when I can use a pure black background on an OLED screen and just have that much less light being produced beyond just turning down the brightness on a screen.

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

#206

Post by rnotaro »

sojmq wrote: post #153
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

Are you sure you don't have a custom theme installed? Mine looks like this: https://i.imgur.com/FBBh1tm.png

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

#207

Post by jiofih »

jolmg wrote: post #124
jiofih wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Latest releases of MacOS (and iOS) have it, and you can even set it to go into dark mode automatically at night.

Well, I meant something with more freedom of styling, not just some established light and dark theme. Like change the colors of system-wide buttons, text inputs, window title-bars, tabs, etc. Change the system-wide accenting color to Red, Blue, Green, Gold, etc.

You can also change the accent color on MacOS! If you want more customization than there’s Linux.

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

#208

Post by markosaric »

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…

Need better evidence to believe this stat too but I do prefer the dark mode personally. For what it's worth, I've been running the dark mode on my site for almost 3 weeks now. 60,000+ visitors since the change and no complaints for now.

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

#209

Post by Justsignedup »

The funny thing is that Dark vs Light mode is actually not an absolute.

Personally I prefer dark modes.

Currently I use light modes.

Why? Because when there is a possibility of glare, light mode dominates. By far. At work there is a high probability of glare. My quality of life improved drastically when I switched to light mode for everything. Even my terminal.

When the room is dark, dark mode is way easier on the eyes.

So really what we need isn't one preference, but a variation based on lighting conditions of the room. A color sensor on the monitor could easily determine which of the two to use.

Not practical ATM. Oh well.

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

#210

Post by sojmq »

rnotaro wrote: post #206
sojmq wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Are you sure you don't have a custom theme installed? Mine looks like this: https://i.imgur.com/FBBh1tm.png

It's a screenshot I've found on the Internet. Perhaps they've updated it; I haven't used Discord in months.
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