18 ms·

Please don't force dark mode

274 points by vishnuharidas 2y ago

lol768 2y ago
I very rarely stumble across sites that genuinely force dark mode.. they usually respect "prefers-color-scheme dark" (as they should).
phyzix5761 2y ago
Please don't force Light Mode on users. Thanks
- sesm 2y ago
  To work around light mode we have Dark Reader extension. Is the author frustrated enough to make a Light Reader extension?
  - SSLy 2y ago
    dark reader can already in fact lighten up dark pages
  - BoredPositron 2y ago
    Darkreader has an option to force light mode.
  - bee_rider 2y ago
    The dark reader extension can force a light theme as well. It would be more properly named the “respect my theme preferences for real” extension. It is a bit annoying that it is necessary.
deleted 2y ago
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nfw2 2y ago
This particular blog doesn't heed device settings and, as such, forces light mode on its readers. The author also changes their mind halfway through and decides the problem is actually color contrast, not dark mode.
- Springtime 2y ago
  Yeah their actual point is about contrast ratio, which makes the headline a bit disingenuous. Ironically they end by saying they'll use an invert filter as a workaround, while for those who prefer dark mode if doing the same on the author's own stark white bg/black text site (such as Vivaldi's 'Invert Mode') will produce the very contrast ratio in dark they're complaining about :p
  - josephg 2y ago
    Yeah - and an invert filter messes up photos. Again, like the author has on their blog. If you wanna argue that we shouldn't force dark mode, maybe don't go around forcing light mode. My eyes hurt.
    - lewiscollard 2y ago
      Then un-mess them up :) html { filter: invert(1); } img { filter: invert(1); } Bookmarklet edition: javascript:(function(){var s=document.createElement("style");s.innerText="html{filter: invert(1);}img{filter: invert(1);}";document.head.append(s)})() (doesn't and can't fix CSS "background-image" but you'll live)
- gregmac 2y ago
  The author's blog also explicitly defines color: #111; background-color: #fdfdfd; which is a contrast ratio of 18:56:1.
Waterluvian 2y ago
I think the more specific argument is to avoid sudden changes in brightness. Neither dark mode nor light mode is the one true “main” option. We had dark mode for a long time with terminals. Then light mode a long time with word processors and the web and OSes. And now we kinda have both.
kenanfyi 2y ago
Anthony Hobday [1] has some pre-defined color combinations on his website. Sharing, since I find it related. [1]: https://anthonyhobday.com/sideprojects/containercolours/ https://anthonyhobday.com/sideprojects/containercolours/
loloquwowndueo 2y ago
Can someone share a guide or how to for detecting the device’s preference and honouring that? That sounds optimal.
- Zak 2y ago
  https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/CSS/@media/prefers-color-scheme https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/CSS/@media/pref...
- ss64 2y ago
  It is built into the CSS standard /* Dark mode */ @media (prefers-color-scheme: dark) { ... } The issue with both dark and light modes is so many designers seem to have jumped onto the idea that colour schemes have to be either bright white or darkest black. I'd much rather see colours that are 'slightly darker' at night and 'slightly lighter' in the daytime. For one thing there are still so many websites with no colour schemes setup at all so if you avoid going to extremes it minimises the contrast difference.
  - bee_rider 2y ago
    The dark mode background should be actually black so our OLED screens can turn their pixels off completely.
    - ss64 2y ago
      OLED displays can still save energy even when they are not displaying absolute black https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34069781 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34069781
      - bee_rider 2y ago
        But it is pretty linear, so blacker is better, and the darker the black is the darker the white can go while still maintaining contrast, right?
  - Springtime 2y ago
poisonborz 2y ago
We've again came to full circle, with so many posts damning "no dark mode" sites back then. Maybe there is enough audience now for a "BrightReader" browser extension?
- djeastm 2y ago
  Dark Reader can force light mode. It's just that most people want it for the dark mode functionality, so that's what they called it
smlavine 2y ago
I agree with this. Default, unconfigurable light mode has been around for a while, and infrastructure like the Dark Reader plugin is around to address this. There is no such thing for light mode, though. In my opinion, light mode is better than dark mode in most situations. The only situation dark mode is better than light mode is when you're sitting in a dark room with your screen as your only light source, and most of the time that's not really a healthy situation to be in. Dark mode is a crutch. Turn on a light or go to sleep. Light mode might be annoying to read in no-light environments, but dark mode is nigh impossible to read in high-light environments. Ever try to read a dark mode UI on your phone on a bright summer's day? Can't read a thing, even with brightness cranked all the way up.
- cwbriscoe 2y ago
  I never knew about the Dark Reader plugin. I just installed it and it makes HN, Slashdot and other sites much more readable for me. Thanks!
- walthamstow 2y ago
  I agree broadly but in London it starts to get dark about 3pm at the moment. In the winter, dark mode is a lifesaver.
- BugsJustFindMe 2y ago
  > The only situation dark mode is better than light mode is when you're sitting in a dark room with your screen as your only light source, and most of the time that's not really a healthy situation to be in. Dark mode is a crutch. Turn on a light or go to sleep. It's always been strange to me how many people without a medical reason for doing so want to sit in dark rooms like cave trolls, but there we are. At least now operating systems all have switchable modes that get reported to the browser. The browser can/should adapt to whatever setting the OS reports. But UI design is, with a few islands of rationality in history from people like Paul Fitts, mostly a cascade of poorly applied vibes and fads. First people say that contrast is bad, so then people don't use enough contrast. Then people say that brightness is bad, so people don't use enough brightness. Then people realize why contrast and brightness were important all along and the circle of life continues.
sgt 2y ago
Also; because system mode happens to be dark, doesn't mean that the users would like dark mode by default. Every dark mode is not equal, and I'd like to start with light mode if possible.
- bee_rider 2y ago
  I don’t really see how a website could make a better choice than to respect the current theme by default. It should be changeable, though.
- Zak 2y ago
  Firefox has a setting for this, defaulting to the device theme.
HellsMaddy 2y ago
Thanks for posting this, it's an interesting perspective that I hadn't considered before. Ideally, sites would respect user preferences such as prefers-color-scheme and prefers-reduced-motion. And, in fact, I just checked MDN and see there is prefers-contrast: https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/CSS/@media/prefers-contrast https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/CSS/@media/pref...
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Sleaker 2y ago
Your light mode privilege is showing but seriously, maybe instead of writing an article with a tone about everything that's wrong with a preference you have you could instead. do what every dark mode user has done and like you said.. just override the css. And then write an article with a tone about how you accomplished it. This just feels like complaining for the sake of complaining.
drpixie 2y ago
Seems like a fashion thing, but the Linux distribs I've recently checked out all defaulted to a dark mode. Fine for night but a pain to read normally :(
bbstats 2y ago
...what is wrong with this person's eyes
- nabbed 2y ago
  I don't know, but I have the exact same issue. White text on a black background actually hurts my eyes after a paragraph of reading, and then when I look away I see those grey bands across my vision for the next 20 seconds. As soon as I land on such a page, I either immediately back out or, if it's a subject I really want to read, I go to Safari and turn on reader mode.
  - dathery 2y ago
    I have the exact same issue too and wish I had a name for it. I had been assuming it was related to astigmatism since I also have issues with low-light environments especially with reflections (e.g. hate watching TV in a dark room, don't like driving at night especially in rain) but it seems like others who have this issue aren't mentioning it so now I'm doubting that. A little bummed seeing how hostile most of the comments here are but I guess it's to be expected if most commenters are seeing very differently than how I and the author are.
    - BizarreByte 2y ago
      I suffer from the same issue and I've always assumed it was astigmatism as well. There are different types of astigmatism so perhaps some types have this issue and some don't? I'm unsure, but I know that dark mode is legitimately hard for me to read.
- 867-5309 2y ago
  exactly. perhaps a case of their eyes and screen refresh rate being incompatible. something smells undiagnosed. whatever it may be, definitely a PEBCAK issue
userbinator 2y ago
If the contrast or brightness is too high, adjust your monitor. Too many leave theirs at eye-searingly bright and then complain.
jemmyw 2y ago
Well hang on a sec. If a website is dark with light text and has just that one style, then that's it's theme, it's vibe. Dark mode only exists if there is a light mode, and give versa. Don't force having to maintain two modes on websites who don't want to?
- deleted 2y ago
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- charles_f 2y ago
  That's exactly what the article says, right at the beginning > If dark mode is a characteristic of your brand, please ensure you choose a comfortable contrast ratio for the text.
  - gabeio 2y ago
    I think the poster was talking about phrasing, “dark mode” implies there are modes to switch. The article seems to incorrectly be conflating dark mode vs dark themes. Dark themes tend to be unadjustable. IMHO I usually just flip to the reader mode on my phone browser or desktop browser when I don’t like the theme of a website. This obviously doesn’t work for all websites but it’s a nice work around since most reader modes allow you to adjust coloring yourself.
  - benatkin 2y ago
    They actually are saying that nobody should have dark mode sites, except watered down ones. What are these "dark-mode" (misnomer) sites that don't have a comfortable contrast ratio? I know there are some, but I think they're including a broad swath of primarily light-on-dark sites in this group. Adjust the brightness on your screen. X's is pretty good, the background is #000000 and there is some #ffffff content, the text is a bit farther from #ffffff than I'd like but pretty close. https://colorpalettecombos.netlify.app/ https://colorpalettecombos.netlify.app/
  - oooyay 2y ago
    Curiously, the contrast ratio wasn't a good signal for me. The white on black text didn't strain my eyes but this did: > However, light gray text on a dark gray background is easy on my eyes. Here the background is #666 and the text is #E0E0E0 which creates a contrast ratio of 4.34:1.
enriquto 2y ago
Graybeard opinion: most sites shouldn't deal at all with colors. Just write plain html [0] and let your users choose. Default browser styles are not only stylish, they are also accessible and responsive by default. [0] https://motherfuckingwebsite.com/ https://motherfuckingwebsite.com/
ryandrake 2y ago
Not just light vs. dark. I wish web sites would respect my system's preferences in general. If my OS theme is purple Comic Sans text on top of a yellow brick wall background, then my browser should respect that. I want to read text using the full width of the browser rather than a tiny 5 inch column down the middle of it, I shouldn't have to perform wizardry in the browser settings, conjure up some overriding CSS, or install extensions to do this. The browser should just say "tough shit, web developer, the user's preference wins." Browsers have handed over way too much control to developers to ignore what the user wants. So much for being a "user agent." Browsers are more like the developer's agent.
- robertclaus 2y ago
  Do desktop apps or anything else really respect this?
  - Borealid 2y ago
    Desktop apps using a UI toolkit like qt, gtk, wpf, etc do by default. The developer needs to do additional work to un-standardize their application.
    - ryandrake 2y ago
      Yes, and too many applications go out of their way to ignore user preferences on desktop, too! It's a major problem IMO. The user should be in charge of their computer.
      - int_19h 2y ago
        When owners of the platforms themselves ignore their own UI standards to "brand" their apps, it's tough to blame the devs for following suit.
- worble 2y ago
  Well, there's not much you can do about yellow background, but forcing Comic Sans is as easy as setting it as your preferred font and then deselecting "Allow pages to choose their own fonts", at least in the Firefox settings page. This is what I do and it makes browsing the web so much better.
londons_explore 2y ago
There is a web API to figure out if the user is in dark mode. use it. @media (prefers-color-scheme: dark) { CSS Rules here... }
kiririn 2y ago
Please don't force low contrast ratios on users. Not everyone is calibrated to >100 nits and viewing your content in a bright but sensible ambient environment The recommended grey-on-grey may be unreadably low in contrast when viewed on, for example, 0 brightness in a pitch black room, or in direct sunlight The full SDR colour range is there to be used, this isn't HDR where you need to limit things to not blind your users
- deadmutex 2y ago
  +1, grey-on-grey can be hard for older folks too
londons_explore 2y ago
If the contrast ratio is a problem for your eyes, just turn down the contrast on your screen. I'm sure there are filters to do that on both desktop and mobile.
- reddalo 2y ago
  I don't agree. I have the same problem described on the article; I can't read websites with white text over a pitch black background. My eyes hurt after a while. At the same time, I use a dark theme on my IDE, but it feels like it's better on my eyes for some reason.
  - layer8 2y ago
    That’s because the dark theme of your IDE also uses lower contrast. Which makes it hard to read for other parts of the population, even if they otherwise like dark mode. Contrast should be a user setting. I’m dating myself, but this was all so easy with CRT monitors, which had a simple analog contrast dial, and everyone just set it to their preferred level.
hk1337 2y ago
Simplest thing is to have light and dark mode themes, use whatever the user has set for their system settings, and also have a toggle to switch between light and dark. You may like dark mode for most things you browse but then would prefer something in light mode.
- gwd 2y ago
  The problem with this is that you now have 2x the UX testing to make sure everything is useable and looks aesthetically pleasing. Probably OK for a large website, but as a solo entrepreneur, that ends up adding a lot of overhead.
  - everybodyknows 2y ago
    Multiply your 2x by the number of distinct markup colors.
nottorp 2y ago
Funny because i find the blog's example of "readable text" extremely hard to read. Because of the low contrast. What kind of eye condition or monitor does he have?
- pclmulqdq 2y ago
  If I had to guess, he has an extremely expensive HDR monitor aimed at designers and uses the full color gamut for everything.
  - nottorp 2y ago
    Well, i'd like to remind him that designers are supposed to "design" for users. Who may have a used monitor they paid $50 for and it's from 2003...
- nshxhzhz 2y ago
  I prefer light mode as well but the grey text is much more pleasant to read then the white text on my ~$300 screen
- magnetowasright 2y ago
  YES! I cannot understand the grey on grey on grey anti-readability obsession. I cannot stand it. It's ugly and hard to read. I wish we'd all just stop doing it.
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Animats 2y ago
For some reason, dark mode sites seem to come with monospaced fonts, usually Courier. I suspect that the next thing will be HaloLite 2.0, where a ring of light appears around the screen.[1] There are TV backlights.[2] Backlights that follow the screen color.[3] There is at least one phone with backlights.[4] Does anybody like that stuff? [1] https://movingimage.org/collection/artifact-halolighttv/ https://movingimage.org/collection/artifact-halolighttv/ [2] https://www.inspiredled.com/product/universal-backlight-kits/ https://www.inspiredled.com/product/universal-backlight-kits... [3] https://www.theverge.com/22566408/govee-immersion-ambilight-tv-backlight-review https://www.theverge.com/22566408/govee-immersion-ambilight-... [4] https://www.phonearena.com/news/Nothing-Phone-1-What-do-the-lights-on-the-back-do_id141348 https://www.phonearena.com/news/Nothing-Phone-1-What-do-the-...
brine 2y ago
Instead of writing this shortsighted article, just do like those of us who are forced to endure light mode, and install Dark Reader(https://darkreader.org https://darkreader.org) that also does light mode.
layer8 2y ago
> pure white text on a pitch black background can strain my eyes and be very difficult to read. […] However, light gray text on a dark gray background is easy on my eyes. For me it’s the opposite, I need maximum contrast. It’s a pity we can’t just have default text color on default background color, and everyone can adjust their browser to their preferred colors. While there is reader mode and plugins that try their best, they don’t work consistently, because HTML and CSS is such a mess.
mukunda_johnson 2y ago
I prefer light mode for most things, but use dark mode anyway to save battery on an OLED Screen :)
ramesh31 2y ago
I've never quite seen a stupid trend in web design take off like dark mode did. Maybe because it's just the ultimate perfect bike shed; something so completely inane and pointless, yet superficially dramatic, that it can be given entire meetings and dev cycles and treated like something important, when it's just 3 lines of CSS. It has become the very first thing anyone requests in a new application, and I have now seen countless entire sprints deficated to implementing it in different more complicated ways every time in each new app. Really bizarre.
carrotcarrot 2y ago
Dark mode is such a dumb trend and I'm waiting patiently for it to die. It's not easier on the eyes unless you're in a dark room with no windows.
- dgeiser13 2y ago
  It's not a trend.
  - pclmulqdq 2y ago
    If anything, light mode is the trend.
    - dgeiser13 2y ago
      Exactly.
  - hulitu 2y ago
    > It's not a trend. Yes, it is a disease. /s
xnx 2y ago
As long as were asking: Don't set color, typeface, font size, link color, visited link color, margins, spacing, line height, etc. either
- moffkalast 2y ago
  I mean this does exist and is already integrated: Reader mode. OP could just use that if they want to get rid of styling and get a consistent look.
  - xnx 2y ago
    Agree. I installed an extension for reader mode since it is so buried (no shortcut key) and limited (only appears in sidebar) in Chrome.
mooreds 2y ago
I hate darkmode. Fight me.
dgeiser13 2y ago
It's interesting how they don't want forced dark mode yet they have no problem with forced light mode.
- nedt 2y ago
  At least on iOS there is beside the normal dark mode also some kind of simulated dark mode that inverts everything that's still light, expect images. There same is not available for people preferring light mode.
seanwilson 2y ago
> Upcoming WCAG 3.0 adds a new exploratory requirement for “Maximum text contrast” and I hope the working committee will address the issue of high contrast text in dark mode and provide suitable recommendations. APCA is a proposed replacement contrast calculation that was in discussions for WCAG 3 that mentions a maximum contrast value to avoid eye strain like this (https://www.myndex.com/APCA/ https://www.myndex.com/APCA/, I'm getting SSL errors right now though). I wrote an accessible palette creator tool where you can switch between WCAG 2 and APCA contrast checking to see how they compare (go to "... > Flip to dark/light palette" to explore a dark mode palette): https://www.inclusivecolors.com/ https://www.inclusivecolors.com/ Along with not having a maximum recommended contrast, WCAG 2 is also meant to be really inaccurate at measuring dark mode contrast, where it'll say colors contrast well when they don't. APCA is meant to fix both these problems.
euamotubaina 2y ago
Just created an account to say that I have that same eye condition and indeed, looking at content with high contrast ratios (mostly with whitish typography against dark backgrounds) gets REALLY uncomfortable after a couple minutes.
chaosprint 2y ago
the real problem is that I use a Eink display sometimes but many websites are disasters on it, e.g. HN.. I have to use https://hn.svelte.dev/ https://hn.svelte.dev/ instead. pls at least provide a switch...
soheil 2y ago
It's worse than that please don't force dark mode even if my system has dark mode enabled. I don't want the primary background color of my computer to be dark as I'm browsing the web but I want only the periphery control items like the browser address bar, etc. to be dark. I have the Dark Reader extension to dim white backgrounds only at night.
- layer8 2y ago
  At least some browsers have a setting to report a different preference to websites than the system setting. That really belongs on the user-agent level.
jvillasante 2y ago
The only reason I have started to use `eww` in Emacs to "read the web" is because people pushing those amounts of dark on everybody, it has become unbearable!
recursivedoubts 2y ago
Dark mode was a mistake. Early LCDs were dim so everyone cranked up the whites to make up for it. Now LCDs have caught up and it burns a significant number of peoples eyes, so we increasingly have to support two modes. Apples comically ugly dark mode icons shows how hard this is to do well. I think the ideal thing to do would be to move back to greys as the base color for computer interfaces, like we had when bright CRTs were the norm. This has the added advantage of allowing depth affordances in UI elements, which we should also bring back.
- layer8 2y ago
  CRTs also had easily adjustable brightness and contrast dials, so everyone could always quickly adjust to their preferred setting for black on white or vice versa.
- eikenberry 2y ago
  Isn't "greys as the base color" what dark mode is for the most part? Light mode is generally off-white and dark mode is grey scaled.
  - recursivedoubts 2y ago
    No. You can't do drop shadows in most dark-mode setups, there isn't enough contrast to make it work. OS9: https://external-content.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=https%3A%2F%2Fvectorified.com%2Fimages%2Fmac-os-9-icon-19.png&f=1&nofb=1&ipt=3bb72531f2d6e497dec49679f39712710503361f861be630bd058d1fbadf0279&ipo=images https://external-content.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=https%3A%2F%2F... Windows NT: https://external-content.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=https%3A%2F%2Fguidebookgallery.org%2Fpics%2Fgui%2Fdesktop%2Ffull%2Fwinnt40.png&f=1&nofb=1&ipt=c9cbc1d9592f19fdbb64856fb4b8a8b36f1f020677599b14b9a3dbb72b1feb7b&ipo=images https://external-content.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=https%3A%2F%2F... BEOS: http://toastytech.com/guis/b5pebaqua.png http://toastytech.com/guis/b5pebaqua.png
    - masswerk 2y ago
      Regarding the BeOS screenshot: mind that this is not regular BeOS, but the OS X-like "Baqua" appearance of the eOS 5.1d0 developer release, which never saw a regular release. (I'm taking no offence, but it may be important to point out what's what, now that image references are becoming as inevitably as increasingly unreliable, as for "AI".)
jrockway 2y ago
Dark Reader turns dark mode sites light, if you want. You can control the contrast ratio on dark mode websites with the "brightness" control on your monitor. It changes the emissivity of the pixels. Turning it down keeps black the same color and makes whites blacker. Monitors typically ship with the white level way too high for any real work (it looks good in the computer store though), and so you should probably always be turning this down.
rishikeshs 2y ago
But what if I have only dark mode?
SOTGO 2y ago
I'm glad this article included an example of what happens to their eyes when they read text in dark mode. I get the same afterimages and it's incredibly disorienting when it happens and dark mode makes it way worse than normal. As an aside, does anyone know if that effect has a name?
- oliviergg 2y ago
  Yes, I am glad to see this post, because I had the sentiment to be alone with this ‘symptom’. Can’t bear dark mode, it give me disorientation and nausea. I wasn’t able to explain this to my ophthalmologist.
- snovymgodym 2y ago
  You might have this. (I do as well). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illusory_palinopsia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illusory_palinopsia
carlosjobim 2y ago
The solution – as always – when it comes to problems with usability is to set your browser to open all websites in Reader view by default. Then every website will always be presented in the way you prefer.
- geor9e 2y ago
  Sure but not all websites — HN and This article don't support Reader view. Are you using a special browser or plugin to do it to all websites?
  - carlosjobim 2y ago
    There's a few exceptions. HN like you pointed out, which I consider an absolute dog usability wise. For HN i use custom stylesheets. But the linked article opens fine in reader view for me. You can also force reader view for any site in desktop Safari with CMD+Shift+R
    - CRConrad 2y ago
      > There's a few exceptions. No, there's not “a few exceptions”. It's really rather common for aites not to display in Reader Mode at all; far too common to be called “exceptions”, and nowhere near “a few”.
      - carlosjobim 2y ago
        No need for anger. The vast majority of websites that you stumble upon are articles, and they open fine in reader view or in forced reader view. Where it reliably doesn't work is web application type sites, which is a given. So reader view solves the problem in most of the cases, and in the cases where it doesn't solve the problem it doesn't make anything worse either.
        CRConrad 2y ago
        Not particlularly angry (at you, not at all; at web sites, a little), just a very different experience than yours: Many articles I come across refuse to display in reader view. What's "forced reader view"? If I could force it (and get a readable result every time), there'd be no reason to be even a little angry.
nighthawk454 2y ago
Contrast ratios don’t go away in light mode. The contrast ratio of black-on-white is the same as white-on-black. Curious then what is the real driver of these issues? If accessibility teaches us anything, it’s that there’s certainly no one size fits all. But it’s gonna be hard to update the standards or make plugins/tweaks successfully unless we get at the root of it.
- seanwilson 2y ago
  > Contrast ratios don’t go away in light mode. The contrast ratio of black-on-white is the same as white-on-black. WCAG is known to be inaccurate for dark mode because contrast ratios do change when you switch the color order. See this improved way to measure contrast that takes this into account: https://git.apcacontrast.com/documentation/APCAeasyIntro.html https://git.apcacontrast.com/documentation/APCAeasyIntro.htm...
thdhhghgbhy 2y ago
I'm more extreme, I dislike all dark mode, including code. Shreds my eyes, no idea why. Have tried a zillion themes, just can't be one of the cool kids.
1000100_1000101 2y ago
Dark mode was the traditional normal. From early green or amber text on black mono displays. Grey on black DOS text mode. Light Blue on Dark Blue C-64. Apple 2's grey/white (I don't recall) on black. Even GUI wise, Amiga used a dark-blue background as the default Workbench, with user selectable palettes for everything. It was Microsoft Windows that changed the paradigm to default to a searing white display with black text in most apps, like Notepad, Word, etc., because "it's more like paper". Sure, paper is white, but it's not glowing white. That transition was painful. I'm glad to see dark-modes return, I agree there needs to be an option, not just forced dark-mode. Preferably light mode options to use a not-as-bright-as-possible white too.
- amelius 2y ago
  Wasn't it the original Mac that changed it?
  - morning-coffee 2y ago
    Yeah, it wasn't Windows that changed it, they just hopped on the bandwagon. I remember (SunOS)[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SunOS https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SunOS] on a SPARC in 1987 that was black in white text, and Macintosh before that.
  - petepete 2y ago
    Xerox had applications with white backgrounds from the start. https://crm.org/articles/xerox-parc-and-the-origins-of-gui https://crm.org/articles/xerox-parc-and-the-origins-of-gui
  - pdw 2y ago
    And Mac copied it from Xerox. But it was indeed the introduction of GUIs and WYSIWYG "what you see is what you get": the screen had to mimic paper.
    - tempest_ 2y ago
      It didn't have to though. Lotus 1-2-3 mimicked a spreadsheet and it is not searing white.
amelius 2y ago
Wasn't the idea that it is more energy-friendly? (In which case, please also stop all ads)
- geor9e 2y ago
  I remember that - in the early 2000s CRT era. Then LCDs got popular and it was forgotten.
  - noisem4ker 2y ago
    It might turn useful again with the rise of OLEDs and micro-LEDs.
MortyWaves 2y ago
The last time this topic came up on here, via a different article, the majority of commenters chose to gaslight the author and continue insisting dark mode is the only valid style.
Myrmornis 2y ago
It seems much easier for terminal and IDE apps to choose background colors to apply to sections of code when your app background is light; with a dark app background it seems harder to find pairs of text bg and fg colors that are clearly distinguishable and also distinguishable from the app background. That said, I'm the author of an app with this challenge so would love help/suggestions on this front. (Is there any theoretical reason for it to be true?)
egypturnash 2y ago
If you want a Professional White Background™ then that's what Reader Mode is for.
ozim 2y ago
I like the proposal to have gray background at least. Glaring white is too much. I like reading HN because background is not glaring. For my taste it could be even a bit darker but it is good enough.
mcv 2y ago
I think this is something browsers should enforce. Different people may have different preferences for what they consider comfortable contrast ratios, and the tool in the stack that directly serves the user, is the browser. And even if websites should consider proper design, browsers should also enforce user preferences, because badly designed websites will probably always exist. I'd suggest browsers come out of the box with a decent contrast range that they will use to display text, but users should be able to modify those settings. In general, browsers should be a lot more willing to override bad webdesign ideas. They already block popups and blink tags; there's plenty of other behaviour they simply shouldn't tolerate from websites.
qwerty456127 2y ago
How comes this isn't obvious to someone they should just respect the OS/browser settings and use the color scheme the user chose? I prefer black on white (and dream of a eInk-only laptop and a perfectly lo-fi UI with no unnecessary elements/decorations/effects) because that feels more ADHD-friendly to me. Dark modes look cool and make sense when you work in the dark, as long as you set the text font color to grey rather than bright white/green/whatever. The user should choose, using a single system-wide switch.
morkalork 2y ago
I used to love dark mode when I was younger but now the bright white text on black background is murder on my eyes with astigmatism, it's like driving at night.
diabllicseagull 2y ago
I saw the first two images and was instantly relieved that I'm not the only one experiencing this.
mvdtnz 2y ago
It's not a "mode" if it's just the design. The amount of whining from people who get "uncomfortable" when exposed to dark/light designs is pathetic. What an utterly stupid thing to complain about.
- ssl-3 2y ago
  On the scale of stupid complaints, where does your complaint rank?
tom_ 2y ago
No, please do force dark mode. This will make the dark mode people think they have won. They will act accordingly. And then the pendulum will swing back, as the pendulum always does. But the difference this time is that because the dark mode people are wrong, and always have been, and always will be, when the pendulum swings back, it will swing hard, for it will swing with the momentum of righteousness and truth, and the repercussions will ring through history. Ask yourself: where will you be standing, when this happens?
- anserin 2y ago
  > the dark mode people are wrong What is that supposed to mean? Some people find it more pleasant to read on a dark background (e.g. because of photophobia), some prefer it for aesthetic reasons (e.g. for a site about space exploration), how is that ‘wrong’?
jbritton 2y ago
I actually prefer text as #fff and background as #000. Lower contrast just seems harder to read. I suppose it depends on brightness setting. Also from an article in Nature. “Impact of text contrast polarity on the retinal activity in myopes and emmetropes using modified pattern ERG” 09 July 2023. “Recently, reading standard black-on-white text was found to activate the retinal OFF pathway and induce choroidal thinning, which is associated with myopia onset. Contrarily, reading white-on-black text led to thicker choroids, being protective against myopia. Respective effects on retinal processing are yet unknown.”
zeta0134 2y ago
Please don't force light mode either. :) My astigmatism means that I find dark mode on backlit screens to be far more readable. For proper accessibility, include both and respect the browser/OS user preference accordingly. Allow the user to override that on a per-app basis if you're feeling fancy.
- interloxia 2y ago
  I find this hard to understand. I find that ghosting due to my astigmatism is far more effectively hidden with light themes. More extreme dark themes tend to be illegible as light ghosting stands out against dark backgrounds. It also depends a bit on how long ago I had my prescription changed and how much I was able to convince the doctor to do a good job.
skeledrew 2y ago
Funny I have just the opposite problem. And so I use a dark reader add-on in Firefox to force light sites, and curse any app that only provides a light theme.
sd3416500 2y ago
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andy_ppp 2y ago
Can’t all of these things be said about light mode too? I find dark mode considerably better and would rather all sites offered a choice, especially the author’s!
rerdavies 2y ago
Wondering whether the author has some kind of odd medical condition, and how common his experience is. The after-image symptom he describes is decidedly peculiar. I can't say that I share his opinion. I find dark-mode preferable under pretty much all circumstances, and often find myself flinching when switching to a site with a fully white background.I also find it easier to read ebooks in dark mode when in full sunlight when reading on my tablet -- also the opposite of his preference. And I'm wondering whether perhaps he needs to turn down the brightness on his monitor.
Brajeshwar 2y ago
Too many web developers assume everyone loves Dark Mode, default to that, and defend their choice by pointing to the toggle button that says Dark/Light Mode. I’m surprised many, even with freshly done websites, still do not pick up on the user’s preferences and are set to it! For developers, the `color-scheme` CSS property allows an element to indicate which color schemes it can comfortably be rendered in.[1] :root { color-scheme: light dark; } element { light-dark(light-color-code, dark-color-code); For users on macOS, I like dark mode in some cases, such as the Menubar and the IDE, but light for other activities, such as reading, writing, and browsing. Hence, it is a mixed preference; System Preferences, then set the theme to LIGHT, then run defaults write -g NSRequiresAquaSystemAppearance -bool Yes Logout, then System Preferences, then set the theme to DARK. Reset back to the default theme. defaults write -g NSRequiresAquaSystemAppearance -bool No 1. https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/CSS/color-scheme https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/CSS/color-schem...
BobAliceInATree 2y ago
I'm looking at you The Verge's homepage.
prmoustache 2y ago
Let people do the f they want and be creative. I am free to ignore these websites if I don't find them easy to read, I can use reader mode, modify their css or disable css altogether if I am not happy, as everyone else.
underseacables 2y ago
Please I am begging you to force dark mode, or ask me up front which I prefer.
Yizahi 2y ago
Personally I prefer light mode, but when using dark theme, for example in the IDE or terminal, I always manually set white brightness to 255 (max). For example Putty and other apps, come with default theme 192 on black and that is unreadable. Double so if someone is sharing their screen. Dark mode is already harder on the eyes and harder to focus, and making it less contrast makes it even harder to read. PS: unless you are adhering to a system default, you better include options for everyone, not just one demographic. For example after recent redesign ArsTechnica has created a selection of different modes. And while some people like darker mode, I'm happily using "hyperlight" because it is easier to read for me.
- hulitu 2y ago
  > PS: unless you are adhering to a system default, you better include options for everyone, not just one demographic Phoning home is more important than the eyes of a user. And the new UXs cannot draw shadows, only surfaces.
secretsatan 2y ago
I feel old, having black as the background is not "Dark mode", it's the default. In many cases I can understand the sentiment, but the default for background is no colour, I think for all hardware, that means not emitting anything
adxl 2y ago
"iMessage" has dark mode. Anytime I send a picture it shows up in reverse when in dark mode. I don't really care what other people prefer, software manufacturers with any more than a few users need to test all permutations. This is a minor annoyance but gives a clear indication that there isn't good testing even with one of the most used apps with a huge user base.
nedt 2y ago
I even more so would need a switch for anything on my screen, not just websites, including screen sharing. It's fine for anyone having a preference, but I like light-mode and being in a well-lit environment for work, if not even outside. When then someone shares their screen in dark-mode I can read nothing.
lhamil64 2y ago
It's funny, the author says the high contrast hurts his eyes, but for many visually impaired users (myself included), light mode is like a blinding white light that's very hard to look at while dark mode is very comfortable while still having high contrast. IMO every website should have a native dark & light mode theme. There is a browser extension, Dark Reader, which changes the CSS to force dark (or light) mode but it can be really hit or miss depending on how the site was coded.
constantcrying 2y ago
Dear website designers, Please don't force light mode. Light mode is only reasonable on E-Ink displays, where white is only reflective and does not emit light. >Every time I finish a long article, I end up seeing horizontal stripes everywhere I look, like my eyes just won’t let it go. I would seriously consider talking to your doctor about this. This seems abnormal.
- hulitu 2y ago
  > Dear website designers, > Please don't force light mode Dear UX, UI designers, please don't force any mode. Let the user choose colors like it was normal since some time ago. > I would seriously consider talking to your doctor about this. This seems abnormal. The doctor does not come with those ideas, unfortunately. /s
dangus 2y ago
> I regularly see many websites including personal blogs that are designed exclusively in dark mode. I feel the opposite, this actually seems quite rare. Almost any blog should work fine in reader mode as well.
mohsen74 2y ago
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mohsen74 2y ago
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Mikho 2y ago
What really annoys is web-sites that force dark mode without an option to switch to light mode. There MUST be an obvious switch option when a web-site forces or offers dark mode—what matters is for a user to be able to change the mode. It's simple common sense and respectful to users.
bdougherty 2y ago
I miss the days when interfaces didn't have to be light white on white or dark black on black. When people thought about contrast and things looked interesting. Discord is my go-to example with this. Before the dark/light craze, their sidebar had a dark background and the chat was a white background. It was great and provided contrast and delineation between different parts of the app. When they added "dark mode", they changed it to be light gray and white, making everything worse. Luckily they added an option to bring back the previous theme, albeit buried in the accessibility section. This whole "dark mode" thing only happened because Apple removed all color and affordances from their interface in iOS 7, and then Mac OS later. They set computer interface design back decades with that decision. For people complaining about "light mode", please just turn down your brightness. Your screen does not need to be at 10,000 nits when you are anywhere but in direct sunlight.
koushik_x 2y ago
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rosennej 2y ago
My optician recommended a yellow background, and I use FFFFF0.
smonff 2y ago
I hope Spotify UX teams reached this.

274 points by vishnuharidas 2y ago

I very rarely stumble across sites that genuinely force dark mode.. they usually respect "prefers-color-scheme dark" (as they should).

phyzix5761 2y ago

Please don't force Light Mode on users. Thanks

sesm 2y ago
To work around light mode we have Dark Reader extension. Is the author frustrated enough to make a Light Reader extension?
- SSLy 2y ago
  dark reader can already in fact lighten up dark pages
- BoredPositron 2y ago
  Darkreader has an option to force light mode.
- bee_rider 2y ago
  The dark reader extension can force a light theme as well. It would be more properly named the “respect my theme preferences for real” extension. It is a bit annoying that it is necessary.

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nfw2 2y ago

This particular blog doesn't heed device settings and, as such, forces light mode on its readers. The author also changes their mind halfway through and decides the problem is actually color contrast, not dark mode.

Springtime 2y ago
Yeah their actual point is about contrast ratio, which makes the headline a bit disingenuous. Ironically they end by saying they'll use an invert filter as a workaround, while for those who prefer dark mode if doing the same on the author's own stark white bg/black text site (such as Vivaldi's 'Invert Mode') will produce the very contrast ratio in dark they're complaining about :p
- josephg 2y ago
  Yeah - and an invert filter messes up photos. Again, like the author has on their blog. If you wanna argue that we shouldn't force dark mode, maybe don't go around forcing light mode. My eyes hurt.
  - lewiscollard 2y ago
    Then un-mess them up :) html { filter: invert(1); } img { filter: invert(1); } Bookmarklet edition: javascript:(function(){var s=document.createElement("style");s.innerText="html{filter: invert(1);}img{filter: invert(1);}";document.head.append(s)})() (doesn't and can't fix CSS "background-image" but you'll live)
gregmac 2y ago
The author's blog also explicitly defines color: #111; background-color: #fdfdfd; which is a contrast ratio of 18:56:1.

Waterluvian 2y ago

I think the more specific argument is to avoid sudden changes in brightness. Neither dark mode nor light mode is the one true “main” option. We had dark mode for a long time with terminals. Then light mode a long time with word processors and the web and OSes. And now we kinda have both.

kenanfyi 2y ago

Anthony Hobday [1] has some pre-defined color combinations on his website. Sharing, since I find it related. [1]: https://anthonyhobday.com/sideprojects/containercolours/ https://anthonyhobday.com/sideprojects/containercolours/

loloquwowndueo 2y ago

Can someone share a guide or how to for detecting the device’s preference and honouring that? That sounds optimal.

Zak 2y ago
https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/CSS/@media/prefers-color-scheme https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/CSS/@media/pref...
ss64 2y ago
It is built into the CSS standard /* Dark mode */ @media (prefers-color-scheme: dark) { ... } The issue with both dark and light modes is so many designers seem to have jumped onto the idea that colour schemes have to be either bright white or darkest black. I'd much rather see colours that are 'slightly darker' at night and 'slightly lighter' in the daytime. For one thing there are still so many websites with no colour schemes setup at all so if you avoid going to extremes it minimises the contrast difference.
- bee_rider 2y ago
  The dark mode background should be actually black so our OLED screens can turn their pixels off completely.
  - ss64 2y ago
    OLED displays can still save energy even when they are not displaying absolute black https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34069781 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34069781
    - bee_rider 2y ago
      But it is pretty linear, so blacker is better, and the darker the black is the darker the white can go while still maintaining contrast, right?
- Springtime 2y ago

poisonborz 2y ago

We've again came to full circle, with so many posts damning "no dark mode" sites back then. Maybe there is enough audience now for a "BrightReader" browser extension?

djeastm 2y ago
Dark Reader can force light mode. It's just that most people want it for the dark mode functionality, so that's what they called it

smlavine 2y ago

I agree with this. Default, unconfigurable light mode has been around for a while, and infrastructure like the Dark Reader plugin is around to address this. There is no such thing for light mode, though. In my opinion, light mode is better than dark mode in most situations. The only situation dark mode is better than light mode is when you're sitting in a dark room with your screen as your only light source, and most of the time that's not really a healthy situation to be in. Dark mode is a crutch. Turn on a light or go to sleep. Light mode might be annoying to read in no-light environments, but dark mode is nigh impossible to read in high-light environments. Ever try to read a dark mode UI on your phone on a bright summer's day? Can't read a thing, even with brightness cranked all the way up.

cwbriscoe 2y ago
I never knew about the Dark Reader plugin. I just installed it and it makes HN, Slashdot and other sites much more readable for me. Thanks!
walthamstow 2y ago
I agree broadly but in London it starts to get dark about 3pm at the moment. In the winter, dark mode is a lifesaver.
BugsJustFindMe 2y ago
> The only situation dark mode is better than light mode is when you're sitting in a dark room with your screen as your only light source, and most of the time that's not really a healthy situation to be in. Dark mode is a crutch. Turn on a light or go to sleep. It's always been strange to me how many people without a medical reason for doing so want to sit in dark rooms like cave trolls, but there we are. At least now operating systems all have switchable modes that get reported to the browser. The browser can/should adapt to whatever setting the OS reports. But UI design is, with a few islands of rationality in history from people like Paul Fitts, mostly a cascade of poorly applied vibes and fads. First people say that contrast is bad, so then people don't use enough contrast. Then people say that brightness is bad, so people don't use enough brightness. Then people realize why contrast and brightness were important all along and the circle of life continues.

sgt 2y ago

Also; because system mode happens to be dark, doesn't mean that the users would like dark mode by default. Every dark mode is not equal, and I'd like to start with light mode if possible.

bee_rider 2y ago
I don’t really see how a website could make a better choice than to respect the current theme by default. It should be changeable, though.
Zak 2y ago
Firefox has a setting for this, defaulting to the device theme.

HellsMaddy 2y ago

Thanks for posting this, it's an interesting perspective that I hadn't considered before. Ideally, sites would respect user preferences such as prefers-color-scheme and prefers-reduced-motion. And, in fact, I just checked MDN and see there is prefers-contrast: https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/CSS/@media/prefers-contrast https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/CSS/@media/pref...

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Sleaker 2y ago

Your light mode privilege is showing but seriously, maybe instead of writing an article with a tone about everything that's wrong with a preference you have you could instead. do what every dark mode user has done and like you said.. just override the css. And then write an article with a tone about how you accomplished it. This just feels like complaining for the sake of complaining.

drpixie 2y ago

Seems like a fashion thing, but the Linux distribs I've recently checked out all defaulted to a dark mode. Fine for night but a pain to read normally :(

bbstats 2y ago

...what is wrong with this person's eyes

nabbed 2y ago
I don't know, but I have the exact same issue. White text on a black background actually hurts my eyes after a paragraph of reading, and then when I look away I see those grey bands across my vision for the next 20 seconds. As soon as I land on such a page, I either immediately back out or, if it's a subject I really want to read, I go to Safari and turn on reader mode.
- dathery 2y ago
  I have the exact same issue too and wish I had a name for it. I had been assuming it was related to astigmatism since I also have issues with low-light environments especially with reflections (e.g. hate watching TV in a dark room, don't like driving at night especially in rain) but it seems like others who have this issue aren't mentioning it so now I'm doubting that. A little bummed seeing how hostile most of the comments here are but I guess it's to be expected if most commenters are seeing very differently than how I and the author are.
  - BizarreByte 2y ago
    I suffer from the same issue and I've always assumed it was astigmatism as well. There are different types of astigmatism so perhaps some types have this issue and some don't? I'm unsure, but I know that dark mode is legitimately hard for me to read.
867-5309 2y ago
exactly. perhaps a case of their eyes and screen refresh rate being incompatible. something smells undiagnosed. whatever it may be, definitely a PEBCAK issue

userbinator 2y ago

If the contrast or brightness is too high, adjust your monitor. Too many leave theirs at eye-searingly bright and then complain.

jemmyw 2y ago

Well hang on a sec. If a website is dark with light text and has just that one style, then that's it's theme, it's vibe. Dark mode only exists if there is a light mode, and give versa. Don't force having to maintain two modes on websites who don't want to?

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charles_f 2y ago
That's exactly what the article says, right at the beginning > If dark mode is a characteristic of your brand, please ensure you choose a comfortable contrast ratio for the text.
- gabeio 2y ago
  I think the poster was talking about phrasing, “dark mode” implies there are modes to switch. The article seems to incorrectly be conflating dark mode vs dark themes. Dark themes tend to be unadjustable. IMHO I usually just flip to the reader mode on my phone browser or desktop browser when I don’t like the theme of a website. This obviously doesn’t work for all websites but it’s a nice work around since most reader modes allow you to adjust coloring yourself.
- benatkin 2y ago
  They actually are saying that nobody should have dark mode sites, except watered down ones. What are these "dark-mode" (misnomer) sites that don't have a comfortable contrast ratio? I know there are some, but I think they're including a broad swath of primarily light-on-dark sites in this group. Adjust the brightness on your screen. X's is pretty good, the background is #000000 and there is some #ffffff content, the text is a bit farther from #ffffff than I'd like but pretty close. https://colorpalettecombos.netlify.app/ https://colorpalettecombos.netlify.app/
- oooyay 2y ago
  Curiously, the contrast ratio wasn't a good signal for me. The white on black text didn't strain my eyes but this did: > However, light gray text on a dark gray background is easy on my eyes. Here the background is #666 and the text is #E0E0E0 which creates a contrast ratio of 4.34:1.

enriquto 2y ago

Graybeard opinion: most sites shouldn't deal at all with colors. Just write plain html [0] and let your users choose. Default browser styles are not only stylish, they are also accessible and responsive by default. [0] https://motherfuckingwebsite.com/ https://motherfuckingwebsite.com/

ryandrake 2y ago

Not just light vs. dark. I wish web sites would respect my system's preferences in general. If my OS theme is purple Comic Sans text on top of a yellow brick wall background, then my browser should respect that. I want to read text using the full width of the browser rather than a tiny 5 inch column down the middle of it, I shouldn't have to perform wizardry in the browser settings, conjure up some overriding CSS, or install extensions to do this. The browser should just say "tough shit, web developer, the user's preference wins." Browsers have handed over way too much control to developers to ignore what the user wants. So much for being a "user agent." Browsers are more like the developer's agent.

robertclaus 2y ago
Do desktop apps or anything else really respect this?
- Borealid 2y ago
  Desktop apps using a UI toolkit like qt, gtk, wpf, etc do by default. The developer needs to do additional work to un-standardize their application.
  - ryandrake 2y ago
    Yes, and too many applications go out of their way to ignore user preferences on desktop, too! It's a major problem IMO. The user should be in charge of their computer.
    - int_19h 2y ago
      When owners of the platforms themselves ignore their own UI standards to "brand" their apps, it's tough to blame the devs for following suit.
worble 2y ago
Well, there's not much you can do about yellow background, but forcing Comic Sans is as easy as setting it as your preferred font and then deselecting "Allow pages to choose their own fonts", at least in the Firefox settings page. This is what I do and it makes browsing the web so much better.

londons_explore 2y ago

There is a web API to figure out if the user is in dark mode. use it. @media (prefers-color-scheme: dark) { CSS Rules here... }

kiririn 2y ago

Please don't force low contrast ratios on users. Not everyone is calibrated to >100 nits and viewing your content in a bright but sensible ambient environment The recommended grey-on-grey may be unreadably low in contrast when viewed on, for example, 0 brightness in a pitch black room, or in direct sunlight The full SDR colour range is there to be used, this isn't HDR where you need to limit things to not blind your users

deadmutex 2y ago
+1, grey-on-grey can be hard for older folks too

londons_explore 2y ago

If the contrast ratio is a problem for your eyes, just turn down the contrast on your screen. I'm sure there are filters to do that on both desktop and mobile.

reddalo 2y ago
I don't agree. I have the same problem described on the article; I can't read websites with white text over a pitch black background. My eyes hurt after a while. At the same time, I use a dark theme on my IDE, but it feels like it's better on my eyes for some reason.
- layer8 2y ago
  That’s because the dark theme of your IDE also uses lower contrast. Which makes it hard to read for other parts of the population, even if they otherwise like dark mode. Contrast should be a user setting. I’m dating myself, but this was all so easy with CRT monitors, which had a simple analog contrast dial, and everyone just set it to their preferred level.

hk1337 2y ago

Simplest thing is to have light and dark mode themes, use whatever the user has set for their system settings, and also have a toggle to switch between light and dark. You may like dark mode for most things you browse but then would prefer something in light mode.

gwd 2y ago
The problem with this is that you now have 2x the UX testing to make sure everything is useable and looks aesthetically pleasing. Probably OK for a large website, but as a solo entrepreneur, that ends up adding a lot of overhead.
- everybodyknows 2y ago
  Multiply your 2x by the number of distinct markup colors.

nottorp 2y ago

Funny because i find the blog's example of "readable text" extremely hard to read. Because of the low contrast. What kind of eye condition or monitor does he have?

pclmulqdq 2y ago
If I had to guess, he has an extremely expensive HDR monitor aimed at designers and uses the full color gamut for everything.
- nottorp 2y ago
  Well, i'd like to remind him that designers are supposed to "design" for users. Who may have a used monitor they paid $50 for and it's from 2003...
nshxhzhz 2y ago
I prefer light mode as well but the grey text is much more pleasant to read then the white text on my ~$300 screen
magnetowasright 2y ago
YES! I cannot understand the grey on grey on grey anti-readability obsession. I cannot stand it. It's ugly and hard to read. I wish we'd all just stop doing it.

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Animats 2y ago

For some reason, dark mode sites seem to come with monospaced fonts, usually Courier. I suspect that the next thing will be HaloLite 2.0, where a ring of light appears around the screen.[1] There are TV backlights.[2] Backlights that follow the screen color.[3] There is at least one phone with backlights.[4] Does anybody like that stuff? [1] https://movingimage.org/collection/artifact-halolighttv/ https://movingimage.org/collection/artifact-halolighttv/ [2] https://www.inspiredled.com/product/universal-backlight-kits/ https://www.inspiredled.com/product/universal-backlight-kits... [3] https://www.theverge.com/22566408/govee-immersion-ambilight-tv-backlight-review https://www.theverge.com/22566408/govee-immersion-ambilight-... [4] https://www.phonearena.com/news/Nothing-Phone-1-What-do-the-lights-on-the-back-do_id141348 https://www.phonearena.com/news/Nothing-Phone-1-What-do-the-...

brine 2y ago

Instead of writing this shortsighted article, just do like those of us who are forced to endure light mode, and install Dark Reader(https://darkreader.org https://darkreader.org) that also does light mode.

layer8 2y ago

> pure white text on a pitch black background can strain my eyes and be very difficult to read. […] However, light gray text on a dark gray background is easy on my eyes. For me it’s the opposite, I need maximum contrast. It’s a pity we can’t just have default text color on default background color, and everyone can adjust their browser to their preferred colors. While there is reader mode and plugins that try their best, they don’t work consistently, because HTML and CSS is such a mess.

mukunda_johnson 2y ago

I prefer light mode for most things, but use dark mode anyway to save battery on an OLED Screen :)

ramesh31 2y ago

I've never quite seen a stupid trend in web design take off like dark mode did. Maybe because it's just the ultimate perfect bike shed; something so completely inane and pointless, yet superficially dramatic, that it can be given entire meetings and dev cycles and treated like something important, when it's just 3 lines of CSS. It has become the very first thing anyone requests in a new application, and I have now seen countless entire sprints deficated to implementing it in different more complicated ways every time in each new app. Really bizarre.

carrotcarrot 2y ago

Dark mode is such a dumb trend and I'm waiting patiently for it to die. It's not easier on the eyes unless you're in a dark room with no windows.

dgeiser13 2y ago
It's not a trend.
- pclmulqdq 2y ago
  If anything, light mode is the trend.
  - dgeiser13 2y ago
    Exactly.
- hulitu 2y ago
  > It's not a trend. Yes, it is a disease. /s

xnx 2y ago

As long as were asking: Don't set color, typeface, font size, link color, visited link color, margins, spacing, line height, etc. either

moffkalast 2y ago
I mean this does exist and is already integrated: Reader mode. OP could just use that if they want to get rid of styling and get a consistent look.
- xnx 2y ago
  Agree. I installed an extension for reader mode since it is so buried (no shortcut key) and limited (only appears in sidebar) in Chrome.

mooreds 2y ago

I hate darkmode. Fight me.

dgeiser13 2y ago

It's interesting how they don't want forced dark mode yet they have no problem with forced light mode.

nedt 2y ago
At least on iOS there is beside the normal dark mode also some kind of simulated dark mode that inverts everything that's still light, expect images. There same is not available for people preferring light mode.

seanwilson 2y ago

> Upcoming WCAG 3.0 adds a new exploratory requirement for “Maximum text contrast” and I hope the working committee will address the issue of high contrast text in dark mode and provide suitable recommendations. APCA is a proposed replacement contrast calculation that was in discussions for WCAG 3 that mentions a maximum contrast value to avoid eye strain like this (https://www.myndex.com/APCA/ https://www.myndex.com/APCA/, I'm getting SSL errors right now though). I wrote an accessible palette creator tool where you can switch between WCAG 2 and APCA contrast checking to see how they compare (go to "... > Flip to dark/light palette" to explore a dark mode palette): https://www.inclusivecolors.com/ https://www.inclusivecolors.com/ Along with not having a maximum recommended contrast, WCAG 2 is also meant to be really inaccurate at measuring dark mode contrast, where it'll say colors contrast well when they don't. APCA is meant to fix both these problems.

euamotubaina 2y ago

Just created an account to say that I have that same eye condition and indeed, looking at content with high contrast ratios (mostly with whitish typography against dark backgrounds) gets REALLY uncomfortable after a couple minutes.

chaosprint 2y ago

the real problem is that I use a Eink display sometimes but many websites are disasters on it, e.g. HN.. I have to use https://hn.svelte.dev/ https://hn.svelte.dev/ instead. pls at least provide a switch...

soheil 2y ago

It's worse than that please don't force dark mode even if my system has dark mode enabled. I don't want the primary background color of my computer to be dark as I'm browsing the web but I want only the periphery control items like the browser address bar, etc. to be dark. I have the Dark Reader extension to dim white backgrounds only at night.

layer8 2y ago
At least some browsers have a setting to report a different preference to websites than the system setting. That really belongs on the user-agent level.

jvillasante 2y ago

The only reason I have started to use `eww` in Emacs to "read the web" is because people pushing those amounts of dark on everybody, it has become unbearable!

recursivedoubts 2y ago

Dark mode was a mistake. Early LCDs were dim so everyone cranked up the whites to make up for it. Now LCDs have caught up and it burns a significant number of peoples eyes, so we increasingly have to support two modes. Apples comically ugly dark mode icons shows how hard this is to do well. I think the ideal thing to do would be to move back to greys as the base color for computer interfaces, like we had when bright CRTs were the norm. This has the added advantage of allowing depth affordances in UI elements, which we should also bring back.

layer8 2y ago
CRTs also had easily adjustable brightness and contrast dials, so everyone could always quickly adjust to their preferred setting for black on white or vice versa.
eikenberry 2y ago
Isn't "greys as the base color" what dark mode is for the most part? Light mode is generally off-white and dark mode is grey scaled.
- recursivedoubts 2y ago
  No. You can't do drop shadows in most dark-mode setups, there isn't enough contrast to make it work. OS9: https://external-content.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=https%3A%2F%2Fvectorified.com%2Fimages%2Fmac-os-9-icon-19.png&f=1&nofb=1&ipt=3bb72531f2d6e497dec49679f39712710503361f861be630bd058d1fbadf0279&ipo=images https://external-content.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=https%3A%2F%2F... Windows NT: https://external-content.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=https%3A%2F%2Fguidebookgallery.org%2Fpics%2Fgui%2Fdesktop%2Ffull%2Fwinnt40.png&f=1&nofb=1&ipt=c9cbc1d9592f19fdbb64856fb4b8a8b36f1f020677599b14b9a3dbb72b1feb7b&ipo=images https://external-content.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=https%3A%2F%2F... BEOS: http://toastytech.com/guis/b5pebaqua.png http://toastytech.com/guis/b5pebaqua.png
  - masswerk 2y ago
    Regarding the BeOS screenshot: mind that this is not regular BeOS, but the OS X-like "Baqua" appearance of the eOS 5.1d0 developer release, which never saw a regular release. (I'm taking no offence, but it may be important to point out what's what, now that image references are becoming as inevitably as increasingly unreliable, as for "AI".)

jrockway 2y ago

Dark Reader turns dark mode sites light, if you want. You can control the contrast ratio on dark mode websites with the "brightness" control on your monitor. It changes the emissivity of the pixels. Turning it down keeps black the same color and makes whites blacker. Monitors typically ship with the white level way too high for any real work (it looks good in the computer store though), and so you should probably always be turning this down.

rishikeshs 2y ago

But what if I have only dark mode?

SOTGO 2y ago

I'm glad this article included an example of what happens to their eyes when they read text in dark mode. I get the same afterimages and it's incredibly disorienting when it happens and dark mode makes it way worse than normal. As an aside, does anyone know if that effect has a name?

oliviergg 2y ago
Yes, I am glad to see this post, because I had the sentiment to be alone with this ‘symptom’. Can’t bear dark mode, it give me disorientation and nausea. I wasn’t able to explain this to my ophthalmologist.
snovymgodym 2y ago
You might have this. (I do as well). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illusory_palinopsia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illusory_palinopsia

carlosjobim 2y ago

The solution – as always – when it comes to problems with usability is to set your browser to open all websites in Reader view by default. Then every website will always be presented in the way you prefer.

geor9e 2y ago
Sure but not all websites — HN and This article don't support Reader view. Are you using a special browser or plugin to do it to all websites?
- carlosjobim 2y ago
  There's a few exceptions. HN like you pointed out, which I consider an absolute dog usability wise. For HN i use custom stylesheets. But the linked article opens fine in reader view for me. You can also force reader view for any site in desktop Safari with CMD+Shift+R
  - CRConrad 2y ago
    > There's a few exceptions. No, there's not “a few exceptions”. It's really rather common for aites not to display in Reader Mode at all; far too common to be called “exceptions”, and nowhere near “a few”.
    - carlosjobim 2y ago
      No need for anger. The vast majority of websites that you stumble upon are articles, and they open fine in reader view or in forced reader view. Where it reliably doesn't work is web application type sites, which is a given. So reader view solves the problem in most of the cases, and in the cases where it doesn't solve the problem it doesn't make anything worse either.
      - CRConrad 2y ago
        Not particlularly angry (at you, not at all; at web sites, a little), just a very different experience than yours: Many articles I come across refuse to display in reader view. What's "forced reader view"? If I could force it (and get a readable result every time), there'd be no reason to be even a little angry.

nighthawk454 2y ago

Contrast ratios don’t go away in light mode. The contrast ratio of black-on-white is the same as white-on-black. Curious then what is the real driver of these issues? If accessibility teaches us anything, it’s that there’s certainly no one size fits all. But it’s gonna be hard to update the standards or make plugins/tweaks successfully unless we get at the root of it.

seanwilson 2y ago
> Contrast ratios don’t go away in light mode. The contrast ratio of black-on-white is the same as white-on-black. WCAG is known to be inaccurate for dark mode because contrast ratios do change when you switch the color order. See this improved way to measure contrast that takes this into account: https://git.apcacontrast.com/documentation/APCAeasyIntro.html https://git.apcacontrast.com/documentation/APCAeasyIntro.htm...

thdhhghgbhy 2y ago

I'm more extreme, I dislike all dark mode, including code. Shreds my eyes, no idea why. Have tried a zillion themes, just can't be one of the cool kids.

1000100_1000101 2y ago

Dark mode was the traditional normal. From early green or amber text on black mono displays. Grey on black DOS text mode. Light Blue on Dark Blue C-64. Apple 2's grey/white (I don't recall) on black. Even GUI wise, Amiga used a dark-blue background as the default Workbench, with user selectable palettes for everything. It was Microsoft Windows that changed the paradigm to default to a searing white display with black text in most apps, like Notepad, Word, etc., because "it's more like paper". Sure, paper is white, but it's not glowing white. That transition was painful. I'm glad to see dark-modes return, I agree there needs to be an option, not just forced dark-mode. Preferably light mode options to use a not-as-bright-as-possible white too.

amelius 2y ago
Wasn't it the original Mac that changed it?
- morning-coffee 2y ago
  Yeah, it wasn't Windows that changed it, they just hopped on the bandwagon. I remember (SunOS)[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SunOS https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SunOS] on a SPARC in 1987 that was black in white text, and Macintosh before that.
- petepete 2y ago
  Xerox had applications with white backgrounds from the start. https://crm.org/articles/xerox-parc-and-the-origins-of-gui https://crm.org/articles/xerox-parc-and-the-origins-of-gui
- pdw 2y ago
  And Mac copied it from Xerox. But it was indeed the introduction of GUIs and WYSIWYG "what you see is what you get": the screen had to mimic paper.
  - tempest_ 2y ago
    It didn't have to though. Lotus 1-2-3 mimicked a spreadsheet and it is not searing white.

amelius 2y ago

Wasn't the idea that it is more energy-friendly? (In which case, please also stop all ads)

geor9e 2y ago
I remember that - in the early 2000s CRT era. Then LCDs got popular and it was forgotten.
- noisem4ker 2y ago
  It might turn useful again with the rise of OLEDs and micro-LEDs.

MortyWaves 2y ago

The last time this topic came up on here, via a different article, the majority of commenters chose to gaslight the author and continue insisting dark mode is the only valid style.

Myrmornis 2y ago

It seems much easier for terminal and IDE apps to choose background colors to apply to sections of code when your app background is light; with a dark app background it seems harder to find pairs of text bg and fg colors that are clearly distinguishable and also distinguishable from the app background. That said, I'm the author of an app with this challenge so would love help/suggestions on this front. (Is there any theoretical reason for it to be true?)

egypturnash 2y ago

If you want a Professional White Background™ then that's what Reader Mode is for.

ozim 2y ago

I like the proposal to have gray background at least. Glaring white is too much. I like reading HN because background is not glaring. For my taste it could be even a bit darker but it is good enough.

mcv 2y ago

I think this is something browsers should enforce. Different people may have different preferences for what they consider comfortable contrast ratios, and the tool in the stack that directly serves the user, is the browser. And even if websites should consider proper design, browsers should also enforce user preferences, because badly designed websites will probably always exist. I'd suggest browsers come out of the box with a decent contrast range that they will use to display text, but users should be able to modify those settings. In general, browsers should be a lot more willing to override bad webdesign ideas. They already block popups and blink tags; there's plenty of other behaviour they simply shouldn't tolerate from websites.

qwerty456127 2y ago

How comes this isn't obvious to someone they should just respect the OS/browser settings and use the color scheme the user chose? I prefer black on white (and dream of a eInk-only laptop and a perfectly lo-fi UI with no unnecessary elements/decorations/effects) because that feels more ADHD-friendly to me. Dark modes look cool and make sense when you work in the dark, as long as you set the text font color to grey rather than bright white/green/whatever. The user should choose, using a single system-wide switch.

morkalork 2y ago

I used to love dark mode when I was younger but now the bright white text on black background is murder on my eyes with astigmatism, it's like driving at night.

diabllicseagull 2y ago

I saw the first two images and was instantly relieved that I'm not the only one experiencing this.

mvdtnz 2y ago

It's not a "mode" if it's just the design. The amount of whining from people who get "uncomfortable" when exposed to dark/light designs is pathetic. What an utterly stupid thing to complain about.

ssl-3 2y ago
On the scale of stupid complaints, where does your complaint rank?

tom_ 2y ago

No, please do force dark mode. This will make the dark mode people think they have won. They will act accordingly. And then the pendulum will swing back, as the pendulum always does. But the difference this time is that because the dark mode people are wrong, and always have been, and always will be, when the pendulum swings back, it will swing hard, for it will swing with the momentum of righteousness and truth, and the repercussions will ring through history. Ask yourself: where will you be standing, when this happens?

anserin 2y ago
> the dark mode people are wrong What is that supposed to mean? Some people find it more pleasant to read on a dark background (e.g. because of photophobia), some prefer it for aesthetic reasons (e.g. for a site about space exploration), how is that ‘wrong’?

jbritton 2y ago

I actually prefer text as #fff and background as #000. Lower contrast just seems harder to read. I suppose it depends on brightness setting. Also from an article in Nature. “Impact of text contrast polarity on the retinal activity in myopes and emmetropes using modified pattern ERG” 09 July 2023. “Recently, reading standard black-on-white text was found to activate the retinal OFF pathway and induce choroidal thinning, which is associated with myopia onset. Contrarily, reading white-on-black text led to thicker choroids, being protective against myopia. Respective effects on retinal processing are yet unknown.”

zeta0134 2y ago

Please don't force light mode either. :) My astigmatism means that I find dark mode on backlit screens to be far more readable. For proper accessibility, include both and respect the browser/OS user preference accordingly. Allow the user to override that on a per-app basis if you're feeling fancy.

interloxia 2y ago
I find this hard to understand. I find that ghosting due to my astigmatism is far more effectively hidden with light themes. More extreme dark themes tend to be illegible as light ghosting stands out against dark backgrounds. It also depends a bit on how long ago I had my prescription changed and how much I was able to convince the doctor to do a good job.

skeledrew 2y ago

Funny I have just the opposite problem. And so I use a dark reader add-on in Firefox to force light sites, and curse any app that only provides a light theme.

sd3416500 2y ago

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andy_ppp 2y ago

Can’t all of these things be said about light mode too? I find dark mode considerably better and would rather all sites offered a choice, especially the author’s!

rerdavies 2y ago

Wondering whether the author has some kind of odd medical condition, and how common his experience is. The after-image symptom he describes is decidedly peculiar. I can't say that I share his opinion. I find dark-mode preferable under pretty much all circumstances, and often find myself flinching when switching to a site with a fully white background.I also find it easier to read ebooks in dark mode when in full sunlight when reading on my tablet -- also the opposite of his preference. And I'm wondering whether perhaps he needs to turn down the brightness on his monitor.

Brajeshwar 2y ago

Too many web developers assume everyone loves Dark Mode, default to that, and defend their choice by pointing to the toggle button that says Dark/Light Mode. I’m surprised many, even with freshly done websites, still do not pick up on the user’s preferences and are set to it! For developers, the `color-scheme` CSS property allows an element to indicate which color schemes it can comfortably be rendered in.[1] :root { color-scheme: light dark; } element { light-dark(light-color-code, dark-color-code); For users on macOS, I like dark mode in some cases, such as the Menubar and the IDE, but light for other activities, such as reading, writing, and browsing. Hence, it is a mixed preference; System Preferences, then set the theme to LIGHT, then run defaults write -g NSRequiresAquaSystemAppearance -bool Yes Logout, then System Preferences, then set the theme to DARK. Reset back to the default theme. defaults write -g NSRequiresAquaSystemAppearance -bool No 1. https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/CSS/color-scheme https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/CSS/color-schem...

BobAliceInATree 2y ago

I'm looking at you The Verge's homepage.

prmoustache 2y ago

Let people do the f they want and be creative. I am free to ignore these websites if I don't find them easy to read, I can use reader mode, modify their css or disable css altogether if I am not happy, as everyone else.

underseacables 2y ago

Please I am begging you to force dark mode, or ask me up front which I prefer.

Yizahi 2y ago

Personally I prefer light mode, but when using dark theme, for example in the IDE or terminal, I always manually set white brightness to 255 (max). For example Putty and other apps, come with default theme 192 on black and that is unreadable. Double so if someone is sharing their screen. Dark mode is already harder on the eyes and harder to focus, and making it less contrast makes it even harder to read. PS: unless you are adhering to a system default, you better include options for everyone, not just one demographic. For example after recent redesign ArsTechnica has created a selection of different modes. And while some people like darker mode, I'm happily using "hyperlight" because it is easier to read for me.

hulitu 2y ago
> PS: unless you are adhering to a system default, you better include options for everyone, not just one demographic Phoning home is more important than the eyes of a user. And the new UXs cannot draw shadows, only surfaces.

secretsatan 2y ago

I feel old, having black as the background is not "Dark mode", it's the default. In many cases I can understand the sentiment, but the default for background is no colour, I think for all hardware, that means not emitting anything

adxl 2y ago

"iMessage" has dark mode. Anytime I send a picture it shows up in reverse when in dark mode. I don't really care what other people prefer, software manufacturers with any more than a few users need to test all permutations. This is a minor annoyance but gives a clear indication that there isn't good testing even with one of the most used apps with a huge user base.

nedt 2y ago

I even more so would need a switch for anything on my screen, not just websites, including screen sharing. It's fine for anyone having a preference, but I like light-mode and being in a well-lit environment for work, if not even outside. When then someone shares their screen in dark-mode I can read nothing.

lhamil64 2y ago

It's funny, the author says the high contrast hurts his eyes, but for many visually impaired users (myself included), light mode is like a blinding white light that's very hard to look at while dark mode is very comfortable while still having high contrast. IMO every website should have a native dark & light mode theme. There is a browser extension, Dark Reader, which changes the CSS to force dark (or light) mode but it can be really hit or miss depending on how the site was coded.

constantcrying 2y ago

Dear website designers, Please don't force light mode. Light mode is only reasonable on E-Ink displays, where white is only reflective and does not emit light. >Every time I finish a long article, I end up seeing horizontal stripes everywhere I look, like my eyes just won’t let it go. I would seriously consider talking to your doctor about this. This seems abnormal.

hulitu 2y ago
> Dear website designers, > Please don't force light mode Dear UX, UI designers, please don't force any mode. Let the user choose colors like it was normal since some time ago. > I would seriously consider talking to your doctor about this. This seems abnormal. The doctor does not come with those ideas, unfortunately. /s

dangus 2y ago

> I regularly see many websites including personal blogs that are designed exclusively in dark mode. I feel the opposite, this actually seems quite rare. Almost any blog should work fine in reader mode as well.

mohsen74 2y ago

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mohsen74 2y ago

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Mikho 2y ago

What really annoys is web-sites that force dark mode without an option to switch to light mode. There MUST be an obvious switch option when a web-site forces or offers dark mode—what matters is for a user to be able to change the mode. It's simple common sense and respectful to users.

bdougherty 2y ago

I miss the days when interfaces didn't have to be light white on white or dark black on black. When people thought about contrast and things looked interesting. Discord is my go-to example with this. Before the dark/light craze, their sidebar had a dark background and the chat was a white background. It was great and provided contrast and delineation between different parts of the app. When they added "dark mode", they changed it to be light gray and white, making everything worse. Luckily they added an option to bring back the previous theme, albeit buried in the accessibility section. This whole "dark mode" thing only happened because Apple removed all color and affordances from their interface in iOS 7, and then Mac OS later. They set computer interface design back decades with that decision. For people complaining about "light mode", please just turn down your brightness. Your screen does not need to be at 10,000 nits when you are anywhere but in direct sunlight.

koushik_x 2y ago

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rosennej 2y ago

My optician recommended a yellow background, and I use FFFFF0.

smonff 2y ago

I hope Spotify UX teams reached this.