5 ms·

I predict that dark mode, like the open office, is a hyped up fad that will eventually be proven to be largely detrimental. Except in the cases of saving batte

by blunte 6y ago

I predict that dark mode, like the open office, is a hyped up fad that will eventually be proven to be largely detrimental. Except in the cases of saving battery on OLED displays or viewing a screen in very low ambient light environments, dark mode is the wrong answer to a problem of an overbright display. If content on a screen seems too bright, the solution is the turn down the display brightness. This is a choice you can make as your circumstance dictates. Dark mode is a nice option for a few cases, but it should not be forced upon anyone. There are two cases where dark mode is a really bad thing: 1. You're presenting your content via a projector in a room full of people (and a room full of people will have some ambient light, because safety rules generally prohibit trapping a lot of people in pitch darkness). No matter how many lumens the projector can put out, they will not make your low contrast content as visible as light mode would have been. Most often, the ambient light of the room will completely wash out the low contrast projected image. 2. You're making a screen recording of your content to demo or educate others (Youtube, etc.). The low contrast, colorful text will not compress as accurately as light mode, so the resulting text will be blurrier than if it were in light mode. So it will be harder to read compared to light mode content. Plus, if your viewer happens to be in a bright room or outside, your content will be unreadable. You've just wasted your good effort by limiting your audience. Edited typos :(

voxl 6y ago
There is literally nothing wrong with dark mode. It is a _choice_ which makes your analogy invalid. You can not choose to have or not have an open office as an employee, and no picking a new place of work is not the same thing. What you're saying is akin to saying: "You like dark mode? Well you're wrong its bad for you." No thanks, not interested in your opinion.
- blunte 6y ago
  And I "literally" provided two examples of where it's a bad choice. If you are the only person viewing your screen, then by all means use whatever color scheme you like. I never said it was bad for you. I just illustrated when it is bad for some people.
davesque 6y ago
Meh. I like it. Particularly when working at night. Simply turning down the brightness often doesn't cut it.
- 411111111111111 6y ago
  Yeah. The only time I really want a dark mode is if the room I'm in is dark. If it isn't, I usually just don't care or actually prefer white for some things like writing mails.
- blunte 6y ago
  As long as it's a choice, then great! But if it is forced upon you, then it can definitely be a problem.
  - davesque 6y ago
    I haven't generally seen that the trend in introducing dark mode has involved forcing it on users.
    - blunte 6y ago
      With most apps I've seen, it is indeed a choice. It's not a choice when someone records their dark mode screen/app and shares that content. There's a lot of very valuable tech education on youtube (people demonstrating frameworks, languages, etc.); when the kind people making those videos are using dark mode, some of their viewers are out of luck. That, and the conference talk projector example, are cases where it is not a choice. So I'm encouraging people to consider their audience. If there is no audience, then one has only oneself to consider :).
leppr 6y ago
Dark mode is not a fad, it's simply a good option to have in the valid cases you describe[1], and has been available in many products for decades. The reasons we're seeing more of it are that developers are switching their bad hard-coded UIs to more flexible systems which allow it, and now that even MacOS/iOS supports it, there's an expectation for more and more apps to conform. [1]: another valid case is apps with a strong emphasis on graphics: Photoshop, YouTube, Instagram, etc. A dark UI mitigates visual interference with the content.
city41 6y ago
In my experience, developers have been choosing dark mode for their editors for many decades. That doesn't feel like a fad to me. Edit: but to be fair, I agree dark mode can be bad in some contexts like the examples you gave.
Jap2-0 6y ago
> The low contrast, colorful text will not compress as accurately as light mode Kind of off topic, but I've always wondered why this is an issue. If I invert the colors, will those parts of the image suddenly compress just fine? Is it something to do with human perception of dark colors (like how many compression algorithms use more detail in various characteristics we're more sensitive to, such as brightness, as opposed to color)? That wouldn't make sense to me, as it seems to be a pretty obvious visual flaw.
- blunte 6y ago
  This dark mode topic came up in the past, and I commented similarly. One (typically knowledgeable) HN reader replied to my comment with an explanation about this. I would have to really dig to find it though... I'm not sure, but I suspect that in general, dark mode syntax highlighted (highlit?) text is on average lower contrast than syntax highlighted light mode text. That could affect compression behaviors, perhaps.
macjohnmcc 6y ago
I like it for the most part but some apps take it such an extreme that I can't even tell where the window edges are when they are overlapping each other and buttons are indistinguishable from the window background color. The skin I am using on JRiver Media Center is that way and the other choices aren't really much better.
dharmab 6y ago
Different people have different eyes. I have strong visual noise and floaters, and having choices for colorscheme helps me select the one which reduces these visual distractions.
dkdk8283 6y ago
> I predict that dark mode, like the open office, is a hyped up fad that will eventually be proven to be largely detrimental. Bold statement. I insist on dark mode everywhere and love it. Besides what compelling reason is there to give the user fewer UI knobs? We all have our own preferences.
- blunte 6y ago
  Apparently I did not write my post clearly, because I did not think I ever said it should be outlawed. Options are great. I did suggest that people consider their mode choice if they have an audience.
thih9 6y ago
> Except in the cases of saving battery on OLED displays or viewing a screen in very low ambient light environments, dark mode is the wrong answer to a problem of an overbright display. Both OLED and browsing in random low light environments often happen in the context of mobile devices. We do more and more on our phones. Because of that I wouldn’t treat OLED and low light as an edge case.
nickjj 6y ago
> 2. You're making a screen recording of your content to demo or educate others (Youtube, etc.). I very much prefer using light themes but I also record screencasts (400+ of them at this point). Every time I run a poll asking folks if they prefer light or dark there's been a majority requesting dark mode in the recordings. Personally I find the colorization of most dark themes having more contrast between the colors. A lot of light themes will make certain keywords dark colors which kind of looks the same on compressed video. I'm not sold on that being the reason most folks prefer dark themes, but I'm also not convinced light mode is better for video recorded content. I think with the right themes, maybe both are equal. I've gone as far as writing a shell script to easily toggle dark and light mode for my terminal, tmux, Vim theme, FZF and other tools: https://nickjanetakis.com/blog/live-coding-a-shell-script-to-toggle-dark-mode-for-terminal-tools https://nickjanetakis.com/blog/live-coding-a-shell-script-to... All I end up doing is running `toggle-dark-mode` to seamlessly switch between the 2.
- blunte 6y ago
  I can assure you that if you produce dark mode content, people will not be able to view it if they are sitting outside in typical daylight. I know this because I have tried, with three different modern laptops (two MBPs and an XPS) which have the best brightness available for laptops. If I hit dark mode content, it just has to wait until I'm indoors. But usually I'm looking for something because I need it at that moment. If I can't view on potential illustrated video, I will try the next one I can view. People taking the time to produce content often do care about attracting and keeping viewers/subscribers, and this is a case where an accessibility issue will reduce the number of viewers. I highly appreciate the effort people put into sharing their knowledge, but I find it really disappointing when I can tell that their effort is wasted on some potential viewers. I may be weird (no, I am, but that's not necessarily a negative), but I know I'm not the only person with this opinion.
  - nickjj 6y ago
    I wonder if some of the videos you've watched had darker themes with poor contrast ratios or maybe the font size was too small? Font size makes a huge difference in the end. It's as important as contrast ratios. I have a $300 13" Chromebook with a 1080p IPS display and I spot check some of my videos on it. I'm able to read the text outside. Although I try to position myself to not directly have the sun glaring on the screen. That would be an issue to read anything, video or not. I'm always for improving accessibility. If it's not too much trouble would you mind skimming one of my videos to see what it's like on your main device? Here's a video on creating a GPG key pair: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1vVIpIvboSg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1vVIpIvboSg
accelbred 6y ago
Dark mode is useful because its always usable regardless of screen brightness. Who wants to be chaining their brightness all day? Also for high contrast, white text on black is always readable while the reverse is not true, limiting the contrast. And the points you mention are not a problem with dark mode but with low contrast. These can be fixed by increasing contrast.
nultxt 6y ago
The most compelling argument for dark mode, is simply the fact that so many people seem to love it and choose it
ThePowerOfDirge 6y ago
Dark mode is easier on the eyes. Think about it: your monitor is not a piece of paper, no matter how hard you try to make it one. Staring at a white background while you read is like staring at a light bulb (don't believe me? Try turning off the lights next time you use a word processor). Would you stare at a light bulb for hours at a time? Not if you want to keep your vision.
- blunte 6y ago
  https://www.nngroup.com/articles/dark-mode/ https://www.nngroup.com/articles/dark-mode/
danfo 6y ago
There are benefits to dark UI for dim environments. The fad that I too am sure will pass is using a jarring UI for the environment just because it is cool. There are fundamental differences when designing for bright/day vs dim/night that benefits humans. In-car GPS was a specialised UI that paid attention to this earlier than our computers. The night UI maximised clarity in a low-light environment without being distracting. The day UI met the daylight with similar clarity. Never jarring. Triggering a system-wide change across devices when the sun dips below the horizon is a nice start. The fact that it trickles even as far as webpage and VS Code theme is just awesome stuff. Speaking to your detrimental cases, maybe the auto-change could be based on ambient light level rather than sunset time. It is certainly possible. Excluding the Nordics, the better solution is likely to move humans closer to natural light. Dim the room or build for natural light, rather than our screens able to be brighter to meet an artificial environment.

by blunte 6y ago

voxl 6y ago

There is literally nothing wrong with dark mode. It is a _choice_ which makes your analogy invalid. You can not choose to have or not have an open office as an employee, and no picking a new place of work is not the same thing. What you're saying is akin to saying: "You like dark mode? Well you're wrong its bad for you." No thanks, not interested in your opinion.

blunte 6y ago
And I "literally" provided two examples of where it's a bad choice. If you are the only person viewing your screen, then by all means use whatever color scheme you like. I never said it was bad for you. I just illustrated when it is bad for some people.

davesque 6y ago

Meh. I like it. Particularly when working at night. Simply turning down the brightness often doesn't cut it.

411111111111111 6y ago
Yeah. The only time I really want a dark mode is if the room I'm in is dark. If it isn't, I usually just don't care or actually prefer white for some things like writing mails.
blunte 6y ago
As long as it's a choice, then great! But if it is forced upon you, then it can definitely be a problem.
- davesque 6y ago
  I haven't generally seen that the trend in introducing dark mode has involved forcing it on users.
  - blunte 6y ago
    With most apps I've seen, it is indeed a choice. It's not a choice when someone records their dark mode screen/app and shares that content. There's a lot of very valuable tech education on youtube (people demonstrating frameworks, languages, etc.); when the kind people making those videos are using dark mode, some of their viewers are out of luck. That, and the conference talk projector example, are cases where it is not a choice. So I'm encouraging people to consider their audience. If there is no audience, then one has only oneself to consider :).

leppr 6y ago

Dark mode is not a fad, it's simply a good option to have in the valid cases you describe[1], and has been available in many products for decades. The reasons we're seeing more of it are that developers are switching their bad hard-coded UIs to more flexible systems which allow it, and now that even MacOS/iOS supports it, there's an expectation for more and more apps to conform. [1]: another valid case is apps with a strong emphasis on graphics: Photoshop, YouTube, Instagram, etc. A dark UI mitigates visual interference with the content.

city41 6y ago

In my experience, developers have been choosing dark mode for their editors for many decades. That doesn't feel like a fad to me. Edit: but to be fair, I agree dark mode can be bad in some contexts like the examples you gave.

Jap2-0 6y ago

> The low contrast, colorful text will not compress as accurately as light mode Kind of off topic, but I've always wondered why this is an issue. If I invert the colors, will those parts of the image suddenly compress just fine? Is it something to do with human perception of dark colors (like how many compression algorithms use more detail in various characteristics we're more sensitive to, such as brightness, as opposed to color)? That wouldn't make sense to me, as it seems to be a pretty obvious visual flaw.

blunte 6y ago
This dark mode topic came up in the past, and I commented similarly. One (typically knowledgeable) HN reader replied to my comment with an explanation about this. I would have to really dig to find it though... I'm not sure, but I suspect that in general, dark mode syntax highlighted (highlit?) text is on average lower contrast than syntax highlighted light mode text. That could affect compression behaviors, perhaps.

macjohnmcc 6y ago

I like it for the most part but some apps take it such an extreme that I can't even tell where the window edges are when they are overlapping each other and buttons are indistinguishable from the window background color. The skin I am using on JRiver Media Center is that way and the other choices aren't really much better.

dharmab 6y ago

Different people have different eyes. I have strong visual noise and floaters, and having choices for colorscheme helps me select the one which reduces these visual distractions.

dkdk8283 6y ago

> I predict that dark mode, like the open office, is a hyped up fad that will eventually be proven to be largely detrimental. Bold statement. I insist on dark mode everywhere and love it. Besides what compelling reason is there to give the user fewer UI knobs? We all have our own preferences.

blunte 6y ago
Apparently I did not write my post clearly, because I did not think I ever said it should be outlawed. Options are great. I did suggest that people consider their mode choice if they have an audience.

thih9 6y ago

> Except in the cases of saving battery on OLED displays or viewing a screen in very low ambient light environments, dark mode is the wrong answer to a problem of an overbright display. Both OLED and browsing in random low light environments often happen in the context of mobile devices. We do more and more on our phones. Because of that I wouldn’t treat OLED and low light as an edge case.

nickjj 6y ago

> 2. You're making a screen recording of your content to demo or educate others (Youtube, etc.). I very much prefer using light themes but I also record screencasts (400+ of them at this point). Every time I run a poll asking folks if they prefer light or dark there's been a majority requesting dark mode in the recordings. Personally I find the colorization of most dark themes having more contrast between the colors. A lot of light themes will make certain keywords dark colors which kind of looks the same on compressed video. I'm not sold on that being the reason most folks prefer dark themes, but I'm also not convinced light mode is better for video recorded content. I think with the right themes, maybe both are equal. I've gone as far as writing a shell script to easily toggle dark and light mode for my terminal, tmux, Vim theme, FZF and other tools: https://nickjanetakis.com/blog/live-coding-a-shell-script-to-toggle-dark-mode-for-terminal-tools https://nickjanetakis.com/blog/live-coding-a-shell-script-to... All I end up doing is running `toggle-dark-mode` to seamlessly switch between the 2.

blunte 6y ago
I can assure you that if you produce dark mode content, people will not be able to view it if they are sitting outside in typical daylight. I know this because I have tried, with three different modern laptops (two MBPs and an XPS) which have the best brightness available for laptops. If I hit dark mode content, it just has to wait until I'm indoors. But usually I'm looking for something because I need it at that moment. If I can't view on potential illustrated video, I will try the next one I can view. People taking the time to produce content often do care about attracting and keeping viewers/subscribers, and this is a case where an accessibility issue will reduce the number of viewers. I highly appreciate the effort people put into sharing their knowledge, but I find it really disappointing when I can tell that their effort is wasted on some potential viewers. I may be weird (no, I am, but that's not necessarily a negative), but I know I'm not the only person with this opinion.
- nickjj 6y ago
  I wonder if some of the videos you've watched had darker themes with poor contrast ratios or maybe the font size was too small? Font size makes a huge difference in the end. It's as important as contrast ratios. I have a $300 13" Chromebook with a 1080p IPS display and I spot check some of my videos on it. I'm able to read the text outside. Although I try to position myself to not directly have the sun glaring on the screen. That would be an issue to read anything, video or not. I'm always for improving accessibility. If it's not too much trouble would you mind skimming one of my videos to see what it's like on your main device? Here's a video on creating a GPG key pair: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1vVIpIvboSg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1vVIpIvboSg

accelbred 6y ago

Dark mode is useful because its always usable regardless of screen brightness. Who wants to be chaining their brightness all day? Also for high contrast, white text on black is always readable while the reverse is not true, limiting the contrast. And the points you mention are not a problem with dark mode but with low contrast. These can be fixed by increasing contrast.

nultxt 6y ago

The most compelling argument for dark mode, is simply the fact that so many people seem to love it and choose it

ThePowerOfDirge 6y ago

Dark mode is easier on the eyes. Think about it: your monitor is not a piece of paper, no matter how hard you try to make it one. Staring at a white background while you read is like staring at a light bulb (don't believe me? Try turning off the lights next time you use a word processor). Would you stare at a light bulb for hours at a time? Not if you want to keep your vision.

blunte 6y ago
https://www.nngroup.com/articles/dark-mode/ https://www.nngroup.com/articles/dark-mode/

danfo 6y ago

There are benefits to dark UI for dim environments. The fad that I too am sure will pass is using a jarring UI for the environment just because it is cool. There are fundamental differences when designing for bright/day vs dim/night that benefits humans. In-car GPS was a specialised UI that paid attention to this earlier than our computers. The night UI maximised clarity in a low-light environment without being distracting. The day UI met the daylight with similar clarity. Never jarring. Triggering a system-wide change across devices when the sun dips below the horizon is a nice start. The fact that it trickles even as far as webpage and VS Code theme is just awesome stuff. Speaking to your detrimental cases, maybe the auto-change could be based on ambient light level rather than sunset time. It is certainly possible. Excluding the Nordics, the better solution is likely to move humans closer to natural light. Dim the room or build for natural light, rather than our screens able to be brighter to meet an artificial environment.