I like dark mode on my phone, because when I want to read at night (i.e. in bed) even on the lowest settings the screen feels too bright on light mode. On my computer though I don't really care, I never use it in a completely dark rom, so at night I just dim the display and have the colour temperature shift.
Is Dark Mode Such a Good Idea?
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Re: Is Dark Mode Such a Good Idea?
#12Personally I like dark mode for macOS/iOS windows, menus etc... but light mode inside apps / on websites for reading text such as blogs, ebooks and emails.
Re: Is Dark Mode Such a Good Idea?
#13No one seems to be mentioning the lighting of the room you're in, inside/outside, or the time of day. Ambient light is one of the primary factors that make light or dark mode better at a particular moment. See redshift to make light mode more tolerable at night.
Yeah, I'm not sure you can say anything meaningful about eye strain and readability without accounting for room lighting, glare, and other reflective surfaces and distractions. If I'm in a dark room with a bright screen, it's almost physically painful to stare at the screen. I have to turn the brightness way down, and then I lose contrast and have to strain even more. In an office with horrible flourescent lighting, highly-reflective white walls and surfaces, metallic accents reflecting light into my peripheral vision, reflective monitors (Apple displays are the worst), and eyeglasses, I'm practically blinded. The last thing I want is glaring white light from my application windows.
There are things other than black-on-white and the inverse. I've been using Solarized dark where possible for years, especially in code windows. White-on-black is horrible, but pastel colors on a slate blue-gray background is the most comfortable option for me.
Re: Is Dark Mode Such a Good Idea?
#14They taught us this in advertising. White text scatters over the iris on a dark background, so it’s harder to read the copy. I’ve even read it in UX articles. It was amusing to get out of school and into the tech industry to find dark mode everywhere. Granted, I use it too. Both my terminal and editor have dark themes. I’m not really sure why. The terminal isn’t really a big deal to me. I could go either way there. B…
> I’m not really sure why.
For me, it’s because too much white background feels like staring directly at a light globe for several hours a day, and it hurts my eyes.
Re: Is Dark Mode Such a Good Idea?
#15They taught us this in advertising. White text scatters over the iris on a dark background, so it’s harder to read the copy. I’ve even read it in UX articles. It was amusing to get out of school and into the tech industry to find dark mode everywhere. Granted, I use it too. Both my terminal and editor have dark themes. I’m not really sure why. The terminal isn’t really a big deal to me. I could go either way there. B…
>White text scatters over the iris on a dark background, so it’s harder to read the copy. I’ve even read it in UX articles. That doesn't make sense. Why does light from white text scatter, but not light from white background?
This makes intuitive sense to me. I assume it’s to do with more overall light being emitted from a white background/black text combo being easier for our eye to process.
Re: Is Dark Mode Such a Good Idea?
#16I think it also depends on the app.
For example Youtube and Twitch where the main content is in video format, dark mode is excellent - just like how the lights turn off in theatres.
Now when it comes to typing, in a Markdown app for example, a white background and black font feels more natural - just like a good old piece of paper.
Re: Is Dark Mode Such a Good Idea?
#17I like dark mode on my phone, because when I want to read at night (i.e. in bed) even on the lowest settings the screen feels too bright on light mode. On my computer though I don't really care, I never use it in a completely dark rom, so at night I just dim the display and have the colour temperature shift.
Some phones allow you to go darker than the lowest setting using an accessibility filter. On iOS, you can do this with the Zoom feature (set to 0% zoom and with a dark filter layered on top). I don't know why they don't just offer the filter without having to go through the unintuitive Zoom setting, and I only happened to learn of this feature because I talked to an Apple employee who works on accessibility.
I now use this as my triple-click functionality since it is more universal than inverting colors (which can cause issues on some websites, with photos, etc.).
Re: Is Dark Mode Such a Good Idea?
#18They taught us this in advertising. White text scatters over the iris on a dark background, so it’s harder to read the copy. I’ve even read it in UX articles. It was amusing to get out of school and into the tech industry to find dark mode everywhere. Granted, I use it too. Both my terminal and editor have dark themes. I’m not really sure why. The terminal isn’t really a big deal to me. I could go either way there. B…
>White text scatters over the iris on a dark background, so it’s harder to read the copy. I’ve even read it in UX articles. That doesn't make sense. Why does light from white text scatter, but not light from white background?
I’ll admit it’s not the best phrasing (and I’m definitely not an ophthalmologist, so I’m playing fast and loose here). Your pupils dilate to let in more light because there’s less light overall when the background is black. This causes your lens to distort slightly, thus making the edges of the white text appear to be fuzzy or bleed into surrounding characters. I couldn’t find a scientific source on this, but a couple articles called it the “Halation effect”. Over time, this creates eye strain, and it’s apparently worse for users who have astigmatism. Of course, if the text is sufficiently large enough, this effect should be at least somewhat mitigated. Generally, at least in my use cases, it’s not large enough. Although the more I think about it, I’m rarely really staring at white on black. It’s usually more like various colors against a very dark navy. I should probably just rest my eyes more...
Re: Is Dark Mode Such a Good Idea?
#19"Unless you’re using an OLED or AMOLED screen and your dark mode is truly black – not dark grey, not dark blue, BLACK. There is no difference in power consumption."
I thought this was a myth. I looked into it last year and found that power consumption was (roughly) proportional to brightness.
At a meta-level, I'm surprised that something with so factual (and testable) an answer can still not be settled.
Re: Is Dark Mode Such a Good Idea?
#20> I’ve decided to stop using dark mode across all of my devices, because research suggests that going to the dark side ain’t all that.
It makes sense to use research to make a decision that is based on data that applies equally across a population. But for something that is a personal preference, it doesn't make as much sense to rely on population-level data. If you started using dark mode because you liked it, then you shouldn't stop using it because, on average, the general population performs marginally better with light mode.