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Material Design Guidelines for Dark Mode

material.io

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Re: Material Design Guidelines for Dark Mode

#131

Post by toiletfuneral »

blitmap wrote: post #124
notjustanymike wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You sound just like a baby boomer complaining about how all music is bad these days. There's no new pattern here: good design, like good music, is remembered while bad design is forgotten. There were repetitive design patterns and lazy emulation ten and twenty years ago, just like there are now, but we don't talk about them much. I personally coded way more table based drop shadows, tickers, and splash screens than I…

I found his commentary constructive. I didn't realize we had gone through several periods of "this design is the most popular". I think he's expressing that people hop on bandwagons rather than understanding the concepts or disciplines behind the design. Design taken as seriously as architecture.

No, he’s not expressing that “people jumping on bandwagon” because he literally opens his comment with “I have a problem with designers” specifically.

And it’s a strange ignorance to only attribute trendiness to a single discipline.

Re: Material Design Guidelines for Dark Mode

#132

Post by cphuntington97 »

spectramax wrote: post #90
anoncake wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> For the curious, google some posters by Josef Muller-Brockmann from the 50’s - they still appear to be designed in 2019. I disagree, it's quite obvious they were designed in the 50s/60s.

Are we looking at the same posters? https://i.imgur.com/BJzS7aw.jpg No way you can say this is 50’s, can you? If so, what gives it away?

It reminds me of Broadway Boogie Woogie which is from the 40s…

Re: Material Design Guidelines for Dark Mode

#133

Post by nine_k »

glup wrote: post #96

Dark mode comment: in the last week of traveling, I have been asked twice by strangers in airports what programming language I am using. In both cases I was writing an email in OS X mail in dark mode.

In a modern IDE, syntax highlighting is quite important, and varied. On a light background it's much harder to distinguish differences in hue than on a dark background. With a couple dozen highlight types this easily becomes a problem when you can't tell two different but similar hues and lose the syntax highlighting signal. An attempt to reduce eyestrain by making not all colors garish makes this task harder yet.

Re: Material Design Guidelines for Dark Mode

#135

Post by nbadg »

hbosch wrote: post #56
spectramax wrote: post #2

I have a deep rooted issue with design and designers. In 90’s, skeuomorphic trend was picking up steam reaching a climax in mid-2000’s. Web 2.0 design elements were springing up, taking advantage of css; while UI elements sought transparency and blur (Windows Vista). That trend passed and then we had the whole Material design boom in 2012-2015, the entire web was sabotaged by Bootstrap. Color themes and palettes were…

I have a deep rooted issue with development and developers. In 90’s, ActionScript trend was picking up steam reaching a climax in mid-2000’s. Flash websites were springing up, taking advantage of animations and sound; while UI elements sought transparency and blur (Windows Vista). That trend passed and then we had the whole ES6 boom in 2012-2015, the entire web was sabotaged by JavaScript frameworks. Frontend librari…

> You are purposely forgetting that design relies heavily on taste.

Not only that, it ignores how culturally-dependent design is. Sometimes in really big, fundamental ways -- take, for example, the fact that in China, the color red is heavily associated with luck, joy, and happiness. A big part of design is understanding and incorporating these kinds of local knowledge; at the end of the day, design is a process, not a destination.

Much like art, it's impossible to truly separate design from the greater context of the world at large.

Re: Material Design Guidelines for Dark Mode

#136

Post by seanyesmunt »

gnicholas wrote: post #31

The author suggests using dark gray instead of black, but then also says that when pixels are completely deactivated on OLED, it saves energy. These seem to be contradictory pieces of advice. What am I missing?

Using black saves the most energy, but using gray still uses less energy than white. For a gray pixel, OLED devices just lower the power output for that pixel.

I'm pretty sure it works a little differently, but that's the idea.

Re: Material Design Guidelines for Dark Mode

#137

Post by [deleted] »

cam_l wrote: post #102
spectramax wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Dieter Rams designs were absolutely based on trends" - based on what observation? The trend at the time Mid-Century design with some influence from 30 year old Bauhaus movement. "He was one of the best because he used an approach which was exploratory, multi-disciplined and human focused. (Tellingly, he was educated in interior design and architecture.)" - I agree, and that is my take as well. "To suggest that graph…

>not the tone I'd like to see on HN. Fair cop, though my comment was in direct response to yours. To be honest, the bile against design is an opinion I see voiced quite a lot here and elsewhere and it riles me a bit, so I did not take your comment as tongue in cheek. >The trend at the time Mid-Century design with some influence from 30 year old Bauhaus movement. Absolutely! You don't think this was a trend? Art Deco…

[deleted]

Re: Material Design Guidelines for Dark Mode

#138

Post by sizzle »

spectramax wrote: post #26
cam_l wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I love it when people make authoritative statements about design. Because everyone has an opinion about design, it must mean everyone is expert. Dieter Rams designs were absolutely based on trends, and trends which very much fell or of favour for twenty or thirty years. The fact that they are on trend again does not invalidate that. Nor does the fact that his designs in particular are remembered and copied because he…

"Dieter Rams designs were absolutely based on trends" - based on what observation? The trend at the time Mid-Century design with some influence from 30 year old Bauhaus movement. "He was one of the best because he used an approach which was exploratory, multi-disciplined and human focused. (Tellingly, he was educated in interior design and architecture.)" - I agree, and that is my take as well. "To suggest that graph…

For someone who claims to not be a designer, you sure are well versed in design. You are a great design critic, what is your background in that gave you all this knowledge? I'd love to level up my understanding of design...

Re: Material Design Guidelines for Dark Mode

#139

Post by bondolo »

otterley wrote: post #125
mattdeboard wrote: post #120

> Dark themes reduce the luminance emitted by device screens, while still meeting minimum color contrast ratios. They help improve visual ergonomics by reducing eye strain, adjusting brightness to current lighting conditions, and facilitating screen use in dark environments – all while conserving battery power. Devices with OLED screens benefit from the ability to turn off black pixels at any time of day. Why is ligh…

I'm no UX expert, but my guess from experience is that most people use their computers in bright environments; and dark backgrounds combined with glossy screens have much more glare in bright environments than light backgrounds on such screens.

The brightness of the UI should match the ambient light in the environment. Light UI in daylight, Dark UI at night. Brightness adjustments applied to both based on the ambient light. Some people may also prefer hue adjustments (blue reduction) for low ambient light along the lines of f.lux, Night Shift, Night Light, etc.

Re: Material Design Guidelines for Dark Mode

#140

Post by WorldMaker »

mattdeboard wrote: post #120

> Dark themes reduce the luminance emitted by device screens, while still meeting minimum color contrast ratios. They help improve visual ergonomics by reducing eye strain, adjusting brightness to current lighting conditions, and facilitating screen use in dark environments – all while conserving battery power. Devices with OLED screens benefit from the ability to turn off black pixels at any time of day. Why is ligh…

I rolled my eyes when the top of the page said that Dark Mode was "supplementary". On a modern OLED the advantages of Dark Mode really should be obvious to everyone. True Black, entirely unlit pixels are great. (It's also why my pet peeve is so many designers using lit dark gray pixels in Dark Mode designs for background elements that don't need "depth" at all.)

I know people that prefer light themes for very reasonable aesthetic reasons (dark themes can seem "moody" or "gothic" to some), but I've still convinced some of them on the battery life arguments.

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