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

getpolarized.io

101–110 of 234 posts

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

#101

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.

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

#102

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.

I wouldn't be so sure, I used dark mode winamp and litestep themes back in the winxp days. It could have originally been that crt white was not that nice, but I still find a largely white lcd screen a bit much.

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

#103
post #36
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…

If system-wide themes really worked, I'd probably be switching now and then between light and dark themes. Dark mode is kind of gloomy but it's also easier on the eyes.

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

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

#104

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

> 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, including temperature) issue I moved back to light mode.

The above mentioned solutions have the nasty side effect that people usually increase backlight, which just makes things even worse!

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

#105
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.

I'm older and I prefer dark mode, whether for CLI or GUI. It reduces eyestrain for me.

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

#106

The problem is, that many of the developers are mistaking the Dark mode with BLACK mode (like Opera GX, Telegram's night mode, Android's [MIUI's] dark theme, and similar themed applications). Dark mode - as with Discord - is really about having the contrast _reduced_ and overall making the whole experience more dark greyish, which reduces strain on the eyes. Try this with BLACK instead, and you'll start to cry after…

Contrast can stay, for me "dark mode" or 'night theme' is about reducing the overall luminous intensity.

My own belief is that when a sea of white is removed the need for 'crisp black' to stand out against it is also reduced; this might relate to a different perceived contrast due to the lowered noise floor (far less photons being rejected, so it's easier to pick out the desired ones).

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

#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 lenses, including in your eyes -- that white "pollutes" black but not vice-versa.

Thus with black-on-white text, letterforms stay separate, clear, and legible. Any light spreading simply makes the letterforms appear, say, at 10% brightness instead of 0% brightness. Zero problems with legibility, still plenty of contrast.

But with white-on-black, letterforms glow with blurry edges and connect into each other. Not on the screen, but on your retina. The same way streetlamps at night appear to have a halo. Words take more effort to read. Now granted, if you're 15 years old with perfect vision, it may not be particularly noticeable or objectionable. But the older you get or worse eyesight you have, the more it becomes a big problem.

So dark mode is nice to have, but for most apps going dark-only is objectively bad for accessibility, and legibility generally.

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

#108

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.

Same here too.

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

#109
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…

Laptop in the sun outside. It’s the dream.

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

#110
I was told long ago in the newspaper business that "dark mode" ( background darker than foreground ) was unprofessional / hacker looking, and "light mode" ( background lighter than foreground ) was the opposite, and I wonder if that generality still holds true in the corporate world?
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