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Dark Mode Sucks
- oliviergg 11mo agoHave a look to the cursor website. Everything dark gray on dark background. I’m unable to use it without an extension to change color…
- p_ing 11mo agoThe only dark mode I like is in my console of choice. Unless I want to emulate a Solaris console, which has a lovely font.
- llbbdd 11mo agowow that was a huge waste of time, why write this or post it?
- TheRealPomax 11mo agoBecause the internet is for everyone, and it turns out that this content resonated with enough people for them to even upvote it enough to end up on the front page.
- llbbdd 11mo agoThen I guess my question is less about the author and more along the lines of the demographics of HN. This is stupid, why was it on the front page?
- CamperBob2 11mo agoBecause so many sites insist on shoving dark mode down their readers' throats, despite decades of reliable, repeatable human-interface research that has unequivocally demonstrated that it's the wrong thing to do. Any other questions, or are you short on time to waste yourself? Edit due to rate-limiting: It should, but apparently doesn't, go without saying that using a terminal is very different from reading a web page.
- arewethereyeta 11mo ago[flagged]
- llbbdd 11mo agoOh no this is hackernews, we can't just live - sites that use Javascript or anything introduced to the web spec (or human preference) post 1999 is suspect, and is your problem.
- llbbdd 11mo agoIs your terminal black-background-white-text?
- llbbdd 11mo agoEDIT: It's not different (removed my snark edit since you were apparently rate-limited but my point stands)
- buzzerbetrayed 11mo agoAuthor seems very angry that people are solving a problem in a different what than he’d prefer
- badgersnake 11mo agoTrue. Use dark mode or don’t, but stop going on about it.
- CamperBob2 11mo agoYou often don't have a choice. Not without being forced to tinker around with your browser in ways that aren't readily accessible to many/most users. What us dark-mode haters are really asking for is a simple option to click.
- moooo99 11mo agoIs it though? Most apps I am using are following the OS/browser preferences or are light mode as a default. One of the more notable exceptions is Discord, but that is largely explained away by the fact that the gaming focused audience often demands dark modes. Also, the dark mode setting in mist browsers is one search entry away. I really don't see the problem here
- CamperBob2 11mo agoWell, I guess that's fine for the "gaming-focused audience," then. For the benefit of the rest of us, explain how to turn off "dark mode" when viewing specific websites that are hardwired to use it, while running Safari on iOS, or in Firefox on desktop, without installing various extensions that may not be available to users at work, or changing the way the whole OS appears. Edit due to rate-limiting: The Firefox theme has absolutely nothing to do with how a web page is rendered. Select the light theme and go to Hackaday, or a logged-out Mastodon page, and you will find that it looks exactly the same. Same with the peanut gallery that always pops up with helpful advice like "Just change your OS theme." Even if that would help, which it wouldn't, I'm not going to change the global OS appearance to accommodate a few asshat web designers.
- moooo99 11mo ago> while running Safari on iOS, or in Firefox on desktop, without installing various extensions that may not be available to users at work Basically all browsers default to follow the operating systems appearance settings. I don't know why you're specifically asking to not change the OS settings, why would you prefer dark mode of your OS when you want the websites to be light mode? To answer your question, I have no clue about Safari, but in Firefox you go to the settings page and right on the start page there is Language and Appearance where you can select your theme. > when viewing specific websites that are hardwired to use it, Yes, that is an issue. But that is not an issue of dark mode per-se, it is an issue with software quality and design decisions themselves. Some apps might implement their own theme switcher (which they should not do, but people seem to like making their own worse implementations of browser standards), others might not implement a dark or light mode to begin with.
- INTPenis 11mo agoFunny, I am sitting here in a dark nordic country, turned off my lights to vacuum about 15 minutes ago, with the dyson laser lol. I open HN and the first thing I see after my eyes adjust to the flashbang is this link at the very top of the page. :D
- throw310822 11mo agoAgree. For me it only works for IDEs and code editing, and even there with a carefully calibrated colour scheme and a (not too dark) grey background. Otherwise, it's like reading neon lights in the night. Anyway, as someone pointed out, our vision evolved to see dark signs against a lighter background, not to see light in the darkness.
- evanjrowley 11mo agoWithout taking an extreme or absolutist stance on this issue, I generally agree with the author here. Dark mode should be reserved for after sunset and before sunrise. The eyes are adapted to see daylight levels of light during daytime. If your ambient lighting and screen don't match this, then you're not using your body in the way it's evolved to function. What we need more of are screens with anti-glare and a wide range of brightness levels. What might have a worse impact on your eyesight is the effects of Myopia, which is being exacerbated by basically every portable device with a screen. Anyone who has the technological literacy to enable dark mode (and advocate for it) is likely someone who gets above-average screen time and is therefore someone at a higher risk of myopia.
- CamperBob2 11mo agoDark mode should be reserved for after sunset and before sunrise. Well, I'll meet the dark-mode people halfway, and say that it should always be available to users who want it. No one is saying that a personal preference for dark mode is invalid, just that it shouldn't be the default option, or worse, the only option.
- anonym29 11mo agoDark mode already isn't the default option across a vast majority of the entire internet. There are easily 10x if not 100x as many sites that only support their default of light mode as those that even offer built-in support for dark mode, and it's more like 1000x as many as those that default to dark mode. TFA does seem to be explicitly demanding erasure of the preferences of an insignificantly tiny minority of websites.
- Oreb 11mo ago> Dark mode should be reserved for after sunset and before sunrise. Isn’t that already how it works in all major operating systems?
- evanjrowley 11mo agoIndeed! I also recognize that it would be even better if more apps and websites supported this.
- xphos 11mo agoI kind of wish white showed up as that manila bookish paper color. I think my eyes read that better than white. But I dont mind dark mode either. I wouldn't never say its mandatory though
- anon84873628 11mo agoLike the background of Hacker News? This is why I've been using f.lux of equivalent since it first came out. Not so much because of all the blue light stuff, but because it's the better "dark mode" anyway (IMO).
- dpark 11mo agoDefault background for early web was light gray specifically because black on pure white is kind of hard on the eyes. I’m not a huge fan of dark mode on the desktop personally, but the people who claim #000000 on #FFFFFFF is equivalent to a paper book are misguided.
- npteljes 11mo agoI use the OS provided Night Light feature everywhere for this, and my eyes are loving it. I have it set up to follow the day-night cycle, so during the day it doesn't get overly sepia.
- Tarsul 11mo agoYes! I use "Dark Background and Light Text" addon for firefox, where you can set the colors yourself, which I did. I use #FFF2cc (I'd like to call it sandy) as my background color for nearly every website (even HN). (+permanent night mode, +blue light glasses that are orange-tinted, so your mileage may vary)
- mikelitoris 11mo agoYou do realize, people can be sitting in the dark right? Right?!
- anon84873628 11mo agoIsn't changing the monitor brightness and color temp a better solution for that?
- xigoi 11mo agoEven the minimum brightness is too bright.
- g-b-r 11mo agoMany screens, especially on laptops and phones, don't have subtle enough settings Yes, making weird color profiles can get you much closer, if you're able to and your device supports them, but often not close enough
- anon84873628 11mo agoHuh. The built-in night functions on both my Windows and Mac laptops work well and can go super orange. My Mac laptop dims to black at the lowest setting...
- pshirshov 11mo agoYeah, yeah, it sucks. Unless you have some particular vision issues. Then it doesn't suck, but this enlightened opinion does.
- semiinfinitely 11mo ago> your ambient lighting is crap . That will kill your eyesight it is a myth that dim lighting negatively impacts eyesight long term.
- mh- 11mo agoThat depends entirely on what you're doing in that dim lighting. And how much time you spend in it. Spending all of your time in dim lighting is absolutely bad for your vision, or at least that is the contemporary consensus in optometry.
- HumanOstrich 11mo ago[Citation Needed]
- semiinfinitely 11mo agoNo it does not depend on what you're doing (eg reading) in the poor lighting- that is precisely the myth.
- trymas 11mo agoAt least before you are grown up - that’s absolutely proven truth. Until you are an adult - you must get outside light (even if it’s overcast winter). On average - luminosity (I hope that’s the term) outside is orders of magnitude above indoors, even when it’s overcast. Kids without enough light have much bigger risk of shortsightedness. Because eyeball development is related to light. There was even an article about this on HN couple weeks ago.
- dsmurrell 11mo agoI only prototype in dark mode (my strong preference), to cater for both would be a waste of time.
- mberning 11mo agoIt’s a godsend for people with legitimate vision issues, such as eye floaters.
- Fraaaank 11mo agoSecond this
- BoredPositron 11mo agoHelps against my photopsias as well.
- hartator 11mo agoI think providing both a light and dark mode is overkill, lead to odd bugs, and some weird color combinations. A lot of eng time lost here.
- HumanOstrich 11mo agoProviding both is not a complicated thing, especially with support in CSS, browsers, and frameworks. That is, unless one designs websites that are so complex and buggy already that supporting a second color scheme costs "a lot of engineering time".
- hartator 11mo agoI think I disagree. Just correctly executing on color scheme is a lot of work. It seems obvious that 2 themes will be 2x the work. There is a lot of images that will require 2x the work if you want to it correctly. Let’s say screenshots of an UI in a tutorial.
- sonorous_sub 11mo agoSo does Youtube's new Theater Mode.
- prmph 11mo agoYeah, dark mode is really worse for the eyes almost everywhere. I make an exception for terminals. I tried many times to like it. When I used to have web conferences with my dev team, I'd have everyone use a light theme for their IDEs when I wanted to read code on their machines, because the clarity was so much better than with the dark themes.
- pint_of_mint 11mo agoI've started using a sepia tone filter for my phone screen which solves this nicely for bright websites. It's in the accessibility settings and actually it's 25% opacity orange but really improves everything. Even dark mode websites look nice with it. It just evens everything out a bit and gives it a warm feel. Anyway, point is, the onus is on the author of this rant to adapt to his circumstances. Not to expect everyone to change everything for him.
- stronglikedan 11mo agoit does, and so does using a screen in the dark. bright room, low brightness, high contrast, light mode - your eyes will thank you later.
- damion6 11mo agoIf I were 20 I'd agree. Dark mode is better on the eyes
- wiseowise 11mo agoIt’s not. Not under all conditions. I’m nowhere 20 anymore.
- hyperhello 11mo agoWhat bothers me is when you copy something from dark mode, and then paste it somewhere normal and you see unreadable background-styled text ■■■■■■■■■■■■■.
- slig 11mo agoPaste unstyled: CTRL+SHIFT+V, or the Mac equivalent.
- godelski 11mo agoI've never had that exact problem, but I often do <C-c> (copy) <C-k> (search bar) <C-v> <C-a> <C-x>. At least in Firefox, pasting into the search bar kills all formatting. This motion is easier than it sounds and you can do it really quickly. Or, you can just use shift like the sibling suggests, but I never remember and it seems to still fail at other things
- moooo99 11mo ago> Fix your lighting instead of bullying the rest of the Internet into eyesight-damaging practices. Is there actually any evidence to support this claim? As far as I know, bright screen and dim room usually leads to eye fatigue and eye strain, but these are temporary issues. As far as I understood, any claims that computer work leads to long term vision problems are largely unfounded. Am I missing something here?
- simonw 11mo agoI occasionally get requests from readers to add a dark mode to my blog - https://simonwillison.net/ https://simonwillison.net/ - and I'm never sure how much priority I should give those, as someone who almost never chooses to use dark mode. Dark mode fans: does it really bother you to read white web pages?
- jolt42 11mo agoYes. Although something in-between works as well.
- maratc 11mo agoNot me -- I can fire a Reader mode that will give me the dark appearance.
- vpShane 11mo agoYeah, it does. It's not the worst in the world but dark mode my eyes relax and I can better enter flow-states. Too much non-dark mode and I get eye floaters. Probably has something to do with having an all black background on desktop / IRC, terminals, steam since 1996/1997->now Even MSN Gaming Zone where I started was 'dark moded'
- Telaneo 11mo agoYes. I have Dark Reader[1] on by default for all websites and only disable it when it activly breaks a site, or a site has a suitibly dark theme and Dark Reader thus flips things the wrong way. If a site is borked to the point that Dark Reader can't fix it, I'll use reader mode or just go somewhere else. Your site looks just fine to me. [1] https://darkreader.org/ https://darkreader.org/
- anonym29 11mo agoYes. There's a reason that https://darkreader.org/ https://darkreader.org/ has 10 million+ installs while no inverse extensions even exist to my knowledge. The entire web is already light-mode first and much of it, including your site (no offense) offers zero built-in support for the provably massive demand that exists for dark-mode color schemes.
- walthamstow 11mo agoDark mode is for when it's dark. People who use it at midday are quite mad in my opinion, unless it's Iceland in winter
- ZeroConcerns 11mo agoEven though most[1] 'Dark Modes' don't work for me (in the sense that everything just turns into a muddy blur and I can't make sense of anything anymore at all), I do realize that's entirely a personal thing, and I do make a point of respecting the user's preference in the apps and sites that I ship. Small price to pay for being neighborly, and a lot less passive-aggressive than "didn't anyone explain to you how to turn down your display brightness?" [1] With the exception of that weird Windows 11 theme option that keeps the main window content 'light' yet turns most OS affordances 'dark' -- that one is oddly pleasing...
- CraigJPerry 11mo agoThe best dark mode impl i ever saw: https://web.archive.org/web/20240101060519/https://tonsky.me/ https://web.archive.org/web/20240101060519/https://tonsky.me...
- grogenaut 11mo agoI purposely switch to light mode for screenshots just to troll. And like a same person (not saying I am one just cosplaying) I adjust my windows to the ambient conditions.
- moralestapia 11mo agoIt's not about light/dark mode, it's about giving both options and letting the user choose.
- mrsharpoblunto 11mo agoJust let people enjoy things, if you don’t like dark mode, don’t use it.
- ghusto 11mo agoI think that's also his belief, but he's currently bitter and angry about how dark-mode evangelists are not doing the same.
- a1371 11mo agoThis assumes low light conditions are bad for the eyesight. Which _may_ be a thing for children, but that's where the science ends.
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- dpark 11mo agoThere’s a significant lack of self-awareness necessary to criticize a group of people for using hyperbolic language and then rebut them with unsupported claims about “eyesight-damaging practices”.
- rectang 11mo agoThis post is a self-described "rant" which doesn't contemplate why some people prefer dark mode (I prefer light mode myself), but let's make something constructive out of it: Please consider the comfort of your users: sufficient contrast, sufficient text size, and when feasible, a choice of dark mode or light mode.
- torben-friis 11mo agoI've been convinced by my team that unified light mode is a good idea. There's always a website, a person screensharing, a shared screenshot or something else that is light, and it WILL bother you if everything else is set to dark. A dark thing in otherwise light settings doesn't produce the same issue, therefore adapting your settings for light work is more protective. My main issue has been finding good light color schemes, particularly for neovim. Most have awful ideas like light yellow colors over light background, that I suspect come from just porting the dark mode to a light background as an afterthought. All of the themes I use have a few adjustments in my config.
- RadiozRadioz 11mo agoThis article has barely any substance at all and its claim is unsubstantiated. Honestly, I'd hazard to even call it an article; it is four sentences and a fragment.
- willio58 11mo agoI view dark mode as basically an accessibility tool. Provide the option of light/dark mode to your users so they can choose what works best for them. I prefer dark mode for most things, but what I’ve actually found is that I just don’t like pure white backgrounds with pure black text. It’s just that a lot of light modes are exactly that.
- TheChaplain 11mo agoYour comment is the first one after many to talk any sense. I recently had an encounter with a sight impaired person that had less than 10% left of his eyesight, and his exact words were "dark mode makes my experience easier". Since meeting him, everything I do when it comes to UI, I try to be more mindful.
- Kuinox 11mo agoI have no ambiant lighting. I have my window opened or the CO2 level gets bad. If I get lights, all the fucking insect existing in the forest will come in my room. Or I can get a fresh breeze while being on my PC in the evening. With Dark Mode.
- anonym29 11mo agoThis is the privileged majority punching down at minority, not unlike an abled person whining about the existence of accessibility options, or a native-born American complaining about government forms also having a Spanish section after the English section. There's a reason that extensions like Dark Mode¹ have 10,000,000+ installs while no "Light Mode" extensions can even exist as far as I can tell: more or less the entire internet is already light-mode by default, with no option even provided by webmasters for dark mode for those who want it on a vast majority of websites. What I can't comprehend is why the people who already have light mode as the default across the entire internet can't be content letting people with a preference for dark mode even exist without aggressively trying to erase the preferences of people who don't feel the exact same way as themselves. Further, for anyone using OLED panels, which is a non-insignificant portion, black backgrounds reduce power draw and therefore global carbon emissions. Light backgrounds literally accelerate climate change, however marginally. ¹https://darkreader.org/ https://darkreader.org/
- pianom4n 11mo ago[flagged]
- samuraijack 11mo agoThis is one of the worst class of articles that are posted on hn. These articles make very confident claims based on their own opinions, are extremely short and make no effort at all to back up their confident claims with any sort of reasoning or data.
- g-b-r 11mo agoAnd are so wrong it hurts
- neilv 11mo agoYes, but we could at least have good discussion prompted by that, until someone flagged the article. I wasted my time typing a constructive comment, while the article was flagged in the interim. Now I'm just going to close HN and not waste more time.
- npteljes 11mo agoI have good news for you, the article is back in business, and the discussion is happening!
- mrbluecoat 11mo agoAgreed. Reading that article in dark mode still made my eyes hurt.
- tensor 11mo agoJust make it configurable. It's not that hard. The only thing I want to hear less about than light vs dark, tabs vs spaces, is the dripping condescension of morning people. Make it configurable and let people be.
- thousand_nights 11mo agoexactly, people have preferences, i don't get how this turned into white vs dark mode supremacy war with people seething and attacking each other over what should be a boolean config setting
- godelski 11mo agoWikipedia, you can solve this with one line of code. Just changing one variable name... Seriously, the fact that light vs dark is even an issue is silly. It only exists out of laziness and that's what we should really be mad about
- HumanOstrich 11mo agoWhile I agree that it's not as complicated as some make it out to be, let's not pretend it's just one variable change.
- godelski 11mo ago> let's not pretend it's just one variable change. On Wikipedia it literally is: change 'skin-theme-clientpref-day' to 'skin-theme-clientpref-os'
- HumanOstrich 11mo agoI don't think you know what you're talking about. That looks like the setting you would change specifically on the Wikipedia site. There would be additional code and CSS behind the scenes to enable that functionality. For example, where is the color palette defined? The discussion is about site owners making light/dark mode configurable. Your first reply reads like you're saying that Wikipedia has an article for how to implement configurable light/dark mode on a site. I now think maybe you just meant "Here's how to change the setting on Wikipedia, it's so easy!" which still misses the point and is not easy for most people. Maybe if you link to the Wikipedia page you're talking about that would help. I can only find variables like the above in documentation about templates and themes. That wouldn't be helpful anywhere outside of Wikipedia.
- thomassmith65 11mo ago"Dark Mode" is a theme, and themes are the lowest form of software feature.
- yegle 11mo agoAs someone who use an eink Android device frequently, I'd appreciate it if every website that uses dark mode by default to have a least a toggle between light/dark. And do test that the toggle works properly for syntax highlight code blocks: for some websites, the toggle does not change the color of the code block and I had to resort to Chrome's reader mode.
- bee_rider 11mo agoOn Linux and iOS I use Dark Reader to fix badly programmed sites. It almost always works.
- bee_rider 11mo agoIt’s just a preference. They really annihilated those strawmen, though. Calling their preference “normal” is annoying. Clearly the alternative is quite popular given that they want to complain about it. Any good program allows color customization. Dark mode looks better on CRTs and OLED, screens that have real darks.
- jebarker 11mo agoI was going to comment that it’s a bit weird that dark mode is viewed as a new or special option. But someone else already wrote a whole article on that point [1] [1] https://eyeondesign.aiga.org/a-brief-history-of-dark-mode-from-the-matrix-like-displays-of-the-early-80s-to-today/ https://eyeondesign.aiga.org/a-brief-history-of-dark-mode-fr...
- glimshe 11mo agoI have eye floaters. Dark mode saved my career. You don't like it? Don't use it.
- consumer451 11mo agoI had Advanced Neurological Lyme disease a few years ago. It temporarily changed my eyesight in a way that made black text on a white background entirely unusable. Having dark mode as an option is an easy accessibility win. On the other hand, not having light mode as an option is just pure laziness in 2025.
- moth-fuzz 11mo agoI agree with the author - I'm sick of hearing the cliches from people who prefer 'dark mode'. But I remember long before there was 'light mode' and 'dark mode' there were themes based on a spectrum of hues and values - actual colors. Why not bring that back? "Light mode" can be way more bearable if it's not pure #ffffff. I dislike the invented dichotomy of light and dark anyway, there's an entire spectrum that designers can use, and I think apps in general would look way better if they took advantage of that.
- HumanOstrich 11mo agoThere are many light mode themes just like there are many dark mode themes. They even have colors.
- gingerceo 11mo agoDark mode actually saves a lot of energy and thus battery time on mobile devices. It's more practical, cheaper, and good for the environment. I don't get the hate in this article.
- jenadine 11mo agoOnly with OLED or AMOLED screens. (And even then, not sure i would say "a lot")
- npteljes 11mo agoMany of these haters have astigmatism, which makes the dark mode hard to see for them. I don't think all of the people who have this realize they have this, so, it gets directed against the dark mode itself.
- hollerith 11mo agoYou are probably going to get astigmatism or cataracts (which also make dark mode hard to read), too, if you live into your 60s.
- bdangubic 11mo agofascinating… I have severe astigmatism and I exclusively use dark mode always, the opposite is hard for me. I did not even know that many people with astigmatism struggle with dark mode
- npteljes 11mo agoMaybe there are other factors too, I'm not very sure. When there are thin light lines on a dark background, that's really hard to look at for me. And strangely, the same dark lines on a light background don't bother me at all.
- shifterrrr 11mo agoI support the article's idea only because I believe that dark mode standardized modern layouts and in a way, killed creativity.
- godelski 11mo ago> If normal mode bothers you so much, it says one thing: your ambient lighting is crap It's easier to change software than hardware. My screen only gets so dim. It's easier to change software than the sun. Neither its brightness nor when its up or down. Wikipedia, why the fuck do you have "auto" if it's not the default? I've never wanted to slap someone in the face so much. But seriously, we can detect the desktop setting trivially. We have options! We can both win here! There's no reason for a war here, yet one still exists. Light mode sucks because the designers suck. Stop being so lazy. The vast majority of templates have an auto toggle! You have to go out of your way to remove it. If you're going to do things by hand, you have even less of an excuse. There's no "one size fits all" and it's clear there's significant numbers of people that like both styles. So do the "hard" work, especially when its not hard Stop being so lazy. And if you're mad at me calling you lazy for not adding the option, then you'll be more mad to know I think you're the problem.
- nialv7 11mo agoDidn't expect Hacker News to be so easily rage baited.
- ghusto 11mo agoIronically, my eyes can't take dark mode and I suffer all the issues proponents of dark-mode use against normal mode with it. I've had to install Stylish just to have control over those websites that think they know better than me on what's good for my eyes.
- gdelfino01 11mo agoI used to be one of those setting everything to dark mode, custom CSS and all, but I am now cured. It was a difficult time as my eyesight was rapidly deteriorating to the point that I thought that I would need to change carers to something not involving computers. I am so thankful that it is over. The source of the problem was that I had been consistently over-prescribed by different optometrists. I don't blame them, but something must be off in how they were trained. To avoid this issue, do not use regular progressive lenses in your eyeglasses. Instead ask for an "intermediate distance" formula optimized for the typical distance between your eye and the computer monitor. In practice this is a depowered formula supposed to be used only for computer used, but I used it all the time. On my next checkup my official formula had decreases confirming that it was too strong in the first place. I know don't have to use dark mode, and my vision is much better in general (I'm in my 50s). And don't over use your phones!!
- krackers 11mo ago>I don't blame them, but something must be off in how they were trained. No, you should blame them. To this day optometrists will prescribe children glasses despite there being an ample body of evidence that working at distances closer than your far point with full-strength glasses will worsen myopia.
- neilv 11mo agoDark-mode and light-mode are both so popular as user preference, that apps and sites should make sure at least stock light and dark modes work well, out of the box. Noticeable examples of needing improvement: * Default light and dark themes of programs/apps and sites that have illegible low-contrast color combinations. Very common, sometimes within themes they control entirely but apparently never tested both light and dark themes. (For example, the non-customizable foreground color a calendar program users to indicate task priority doesn't change when the theme changes the background color to dark. Or the terminal app thinks that yellow is a foreground color to use for highlighting warnings, and apparently the author has never heard of terminal windows with white backgrounds.) * Bluesky's delayed page-loading full-screen interstitial of small butterfly logo against white backdrop, rendered when they know the session is in dark mode. If you've in dark mode in a dark room, winding down for bed at night, this is awful. I occasionally notice lesser problems like this with streaming video UIs, but not as consistently jarring/blinding as Bluesky. (Almost as awful as the movies/shows on home video streaming services that throw in gratuitous strobe light scenes. If it doesn't give the customers seizures, it stil can't be good for their sleep cycle. At least Bluesky's unnecessary sudden blinding white doesn't strobe.)
- mvdtnz 11mo agoIf your sleep is important to you (and it definitely should be) you should not be watching movies or browsing bluesky immediately before bedtime. If you are doing so, I don't want to hear complaints about how these apps are affecting your sleep. It's on you.
- neilv 11mo agoHow about we simplify the point: Support light-mode and dark-mode, and don't mess it up like a vibe-coder.
- Jordan-117 11mo agoMaybe I'm weird, but I just stick with whatever the default is per app. Discord and Spotify and MetaFilter dark, Slack and Gmail and HN light. It feels strange switching either to the non-default, but have no preference for either as a whole.
- deleted 11mo ago[deleted]
- g-b-r 11mo agoSomeone needs to read about the effects of artificial lighting
- busymom0 11mo agoNo idea why this extremely poor "article" is getting so much attention on HN. There is a time and place for dark mode. For certain demographics, default dark mode may be more suitable than others. And letting the user change it covers all bases. For example, on my site [1], I default to dark mode (not pure black though) and have settings for changing the theme to: Pure black, Light mode (white), and 2 custom themes which are off white, and a dark blue background. I picked dark mode as default because my site is directed towards tech people (it's for STEM + Arts and Design) and thought dark mode works well for that theme. [1] https://limereader.com/ https://limereader.com/
- vogu66 11mo agofor what it's worth, my ophthalmologist recommended I use light mode only, with reduced blue and red (because red light actually activates the blue cones too apparently) Then my screen time started affecting my sleep so I still use dark mode at night But anyways all software should be configurable and follow the parent software (browser, OS) by default, css even allows for that now. There is even a "prefers-contrast" property in order to design for people who need high contrast stuff.
- QuiEgo 11mo agoThat article needs way more meat. I’d recommend this classic for a read: https://graphicdesign.stackexchange.com/questions/15142/which-is-easier-on-the-eyes-dark-on-light-or-light-on-dark https://graphicdesign.stackexchange.com/questions/15142/whic... Tl;dr dark text on a light background is usually easiest to read. Note in dark mode, you often see font bolded to compensate for the readability drop. Almost ever major website dosent use dark backgrounds for text for a reason. I personally like a dark mode UI (menu bars, dock, and so on), so it’s less distracting, but light mode for content.
- caidehen 11mo agoI suppose you never heard of floaters, let alone experienced it.
- mrjay42 11mo agoSide note: if you're autistic -> this article isn't for you.
- mlok 11mo agoOk you don't like dark mode. I love dark mode, and I don't like light mode. Everything is dark mode on my machines, day and night. I find it stupid to have so much light beamed into my face, and I prefer to only light up the useful signal. The letters and numbers, and graphs. The 99% of background is of no interest and as such it doesn't need to send light to my face.
- disqard 11mo agoI rarely flag articles, but this one was garbage and made the cut.
- periodjet 11mo agoThis post makes me want to start a site to collect the worst-ever takes shared on HN. Right now this would be at the top of the list. ;)
- npteljes 11mo agoI mean, there is not much substance in the article, but I agree. I don't like dark mode too much either. I read that people with astigmatism, so cylindrical sight, don't handle dark mode well. I'm not sure how true this is, but it definitely applies to me. I can't seem to properly focus on many dark mode UIs - with spreadsheet software being the worst. What I found is that using light mode, reducing screen brightness, adequate ambient lighting, and applying a brown filter works really well. Each of these components add an immediate relief when I'm applying them. Funny thing is, I'm experimenting with dark mode in some places. In my KDE, it seems to work well for me in general OS UI, and in my file manager. Also works well on my phone after dark. What I especially dislike is the mixing of dark and light modes. For example, when everything is light mode, only the terminal, and the IDE are dark. Fuck that. For this reason, for many years, I had my terminal in light mode as well.
- hulitu 11mo ago> Dark Mode Sucks Light mode sucks the same. I need contrast damn it. I need to be able to select my background and foreground color like in Win 95 (or X wimdows with Xt).
- bicepjai 11mo agoIf someone is counting votes for dark mode in these comments. Count me for dark mode. Just remember everyone is different.
- morgan814 11mo agoMy eyes are extremely sensitive to light so dark mode with a yellow filter is my preference. Too much of the wrong light triggers a weird dissociative-type response in my head and feels terrible. I’d be interested if anyone else uses dark mode specifically for this reason. At the same time I have pretty extreme myopia and astigmatism which, from what I’ve seen, makes me an ideal candidate for light mode. On e-ink I 100% prefer light mode (dark text) to be preferable though. Weird how argumentative people get about this though. Feels like vim/emacs level stuff.
- Jotalea 11mo agoI can't read the article since the server returns a 404 (not found). I'm guessing it was too much of a hot take that it had to be removed.