I tried Zulip a few years ago and found it too "ugly" to recommend to non-technical peers (I also didn't grok the threads model). I checked the website now to

I tried Zulip a few years ago and found it too "ugly" to recommend to non-technical peers (I also didn't grok the threads model). I checked the website now to see if I'd like the night mode better, and I can't find any screenshots with it! If people tend to vastly prefer zulips UI with the settings you mention, your product adoption will probably be much higher if your website screenshots show the dark mode with 110% zoom. While it'd be nice to improve the defaults, I know that can be disruptive - the quickest quickfix would be to mention those settings in the installation instructions. Failing the change mentioned above, it would at least be nice to include some screenshots on the help article about turning on night mode (ideally with some good alt text so google images picks it up). Disclaimer that I only looked at the top two DDG results for "Zulip night mode"