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Material Design Guidelines for Dark Mode

material.io

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Re: Material Design Guidelines for Dark Mode

#141

Post by turbinerneiter »

spectramax wrote: post #39
turbinerneiter wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this is a great point. Design has two layers. The first one is based on science. Ergonomics (i.e. edge of the screen is fast to reach with a mouse, color contrast, size of fonts, ...). The second layer is style. In the given constraint of color contrast, you use _these_ colors, ... The minimalist style often acts like it is on the first layer, but it is just style on top of ergonomics. It is a good design sys…

I have a particular fascination for "boring" professor websites: https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/38619/why-are-p... Particularly the following comment: "In some scientific fields/cultures, a stylish website could be viewed as unnecessary or even pompous. In this view, the textual content of a website is the only thing that matters, and if you "need" to make your website stylish perhaps it lacks real subs…

There is also the old-school bare HTML hacker website, that encourages you to bring your own css with ?css=whatever.css

Re: Material Design Guidelines for Dark Mode

#142

Post by dugluak »

In the System Icons section they have this tagline "Simplify icons for greater clarity and legibility." below an abstract icon of a so called ship - [https://material.io/design/iconography/system-icons.html?ima...]

Which I think is ironic.

Because if you see just that icon it's really hard to recognize what it is, I bet many won't see a ship it (at least I didn't). Only because of a realistic ship icon shown next to it that one realizes that it is in fact a ship.

Re: Material Design Guidelines for Dark Mode

#143

Post by komali2 »

This makes me think of my favorite vscode theme: Default High Contrast. https://code.visualstudio.com/docs/editor/accessibility You can see it there if you scroll down.

It reminds me of old vector graphic games like Tempest. I don't know much about design, but I feel like it's "harder" to contrast with black than white, and so the bright lines of color against the black background actually give me happy feelings. Weird, but I genuinely think it improves my coding experience.

I like it so much I've been slowly porting the theme to Emacs: https://github.com/komali2/Emacs-VSCode-Default-High-Contras...

When I have some spare time I'd like to sit down and actually learn more about design concepts around these kinds of dark high contrast visualizations, and old vector graphics. Ideally I'd like to learn how to incorporate them into my own web and game design... one day!

Re: Material Design Guidelines for Dark Mode

#144

Post by komali2 »

benatkin wrote: post #114
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.

Are you a developer? If so, you may have unintentionally provided subtle hints to them that you're a developer. Everyone seems to be able to guess that I'm a developer regardless of what I'm doing and whether or not I'm wearing a tech-related t-shirt. If they think you're a developer, it's not surprising they would be quick to leap to the conclusion that you're writing code.

My off the cuff guess: Someone saw a young person in casual clothing in an environment that made it obvious they were non-local (i.e. a white dude in a Chinese airport or something) in an off-season for tourism, and thought "well they're either here for business or pleasure, and one of the few people that can afford a pleasure trip in the middle of the year like this (money + time off) is a developer."

Kinda fun to think about all the subtle clues we're giving off without even realizing it. Of course any of these observations could lead to a totally wrong conclusion, which makes me start to think of all the fun ways you could "disguise" yourself in modern society.

Re: Material Design Guidelines for Dark Mode

#145

Post by dugluak »

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…

Not everybody gets the luxury to afford a good designer. Frameworks like Bootstrap/Bumla help developers with poor aesthetic sense or simply not having time to deal with design nuances across different browsers a way to deliver better looking applications.

Re: Material Design Guidelines for Dark Mode

#146

Post by tozeur »

komali2 wrote: post #143

This makes me think of my favorite vscode theme: Default High Contrast. https://code.visualstudio.com/docs/editor/accessibility You can see it there if you scroll down. It reminds me of old vector graphic games like Tempest. I don't know much about design, but I feel like it's "harder" to contrast with black than white, and so the bright lines of color against the black background actually give me happy feelings. Wei…

That’s also my favorite theme! I love the simplicity. If only they had a slightly less contrasty version of it, I’d use it 100% of the time.

Re: Material Design Guidelines for Dark Mode

#147

Post by soulofmischief »

marcusjt wrote: post #119
soulofmischief wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

...I feel like all UIs should require efficient battery usage, and UIs that don't are an anti-pattern.

Yes but whether dark is more efficient or not depends on screen technology, plus there's battery level, viewing conditions and user preferences to factor in, so ultimately it's up to the phone OS / supporting software to make smart decisions about what's the right theme to show at any given moment.

That seems a bit orthogonal to my statement.

Regardless of specific hardware implementations, it can be agreed upon that patterns which can cause some non-negligible amount devices to be less energy efficient are anti-patterns.

Re: Material Design Guidelines for Dark Mode

#148

Post by cljs-js-eval »

harimau777 wrote: post #87
madeofpalk wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Designers fundamentally do not understand that software is a tool that people use to get things done. I find this point of view - that designers are inferior to developers - to be incredibly condescending and yet very typical of HN. I'm a developer, and I would hate to work with you or someone who holds this view point. You seem like poison in a development team. Regardless of whether you meant or not, that's what…

I see where you are coming from, but to play Devil's advocate: My understanding of Design Thinking is that the entire idea is that the people using a tool know better than the designers. Designers are supposed to interview them and develop a product that better meets their needs. Instead it seems like many designers make something that they think looks cool (e.g. the touch bar and ultra-thinness on Apple laptops) and…

You can test this directly by asking what piece of user feedback prompted small visual features of the design. If half or more of the design decisions have some kind of backing in experimental data (including interview/qualitative data, that counts too!) you're good. If almost nothing about the design can be directly tied back to experimental data, the designer has gone wrong.

I've worked at several places where the designers made a big show of interviewing/looking at data, but then could not incorporate any aspect of it into their designs. Unsurprisingly, their tools weren't used or appreciated.

Re: Material Design Guidelines for Dark Mode

#149

Post by spectramax »

davidivadavid wrote: post #128
spectramax wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good point about the differentiating factor in branding. I think about design in same way, whether its web design, garden design or industrial design. For example, similar trends have picked up in Cars. RGB mood lighting - everyone is adding it now without fundamentally considering its utilitarian value. Or even if they realize it is "decoration", market forces and consumer choices are obliging car manufacturers to i…

Oh, to be sure, there are thoughtless design decisions that are made. Note that that kind of trend chasing to get to feature parity is often just bad product management rather than design per se.

I wish there was more information about design in regimented and disciplined fields such as Aviation where marketing is deprioritized and utilitarianism, pragmatism and functionalism takes precedence. Cockpit design, radar screen layout, nuclear power plant control panels, etc are fascinating areas of design where lives are at stake. All the fluff in consumer design takes a back seat.

Re: Material Design Guidelines for Dark Mode

#150

Post by sonnyblarney »

spectramax wrote: post #39
turbinerneiter wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this is a great point. Design has two layers. The first one is based on science. Ergonomics (i.e. edge of the screen is fast to reach with a mouse, color contrast, size of fonts, ...). The second layer is style. In the given constraint of color contrast, you use _these_ colors, ... The minimalist style often acts like it is on the first layer, but it is just style on top of ergonomics. It is a good design sys…

I have a particular fascination for "boring" professor websites: https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/38619/why-are-p... Particularly the following comment: "In some scientific fields/cultures, a stylish website could be viewed as unnecessary or even pompous. In this view, the textual content of a website is the only thing that matters, and if you "need" to make your website stylish perhaps it lacks real subs…

There's some reason behind this.

But - and get this - this is an aesthetic in and of itself! It's part of the subtle 'self branding' of academics!

Banking culture, academic culture, SV startup culture, punk culture - they all have their idioms, behaviours, signalling etc. in fact far more so than we'd ever like to admit.

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