Stories
Slash Boxes
Comments

SoylentNews is people

SoylentNews is powered by your submissions, so send in your scoop. Only 18 submissions in the queue.

The Dark Mode Craze May Do More Harm than Good – This is Why

posted by Fnord666 on Saturday October 26 2019, @12:27PM   Printer-friendly
from the you-don't-know-the-power-of-the-dark-mode dept.

upstart writes:

Submitted via IRC for soylent_brown

The Dark Mode craze may do more harm than good – this is why

The hot new topic in terms of smartphone and computer software right now is Dark Mode, an optional system look that flips the colors of an app or operating system to make it, well, dark. Instagram has a dark mode, as does Chrome, WhatsApp, Gmail, and iOS 13, and it seems apps and developers are tripping over themselves to create a new dark mode for their software.

There's just one problem which none of these hard-working people seem to have considered that makes their work redundant, and the attention they've taken from other projects will be in vain: all in all, dark mode looks totally awful.

That's not a dig at any dark mode in particular, and no developers have implemented it particularly poorly (well, apart from Android 10). But in the rush for developers to see if they could implement dark mode on their apps, no-one asked if they should - and taken stock of how it might be reworked better rather than just following the trend.

Beyond that, there are legitimate reasons why developers shouldn't be focusing on Dark Mode. Here's why the Dark Mode craze is just crazy.

So dear soylentils, do you use dark mode on your applications, and why or why not?

Original Submission

 
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.
The Dark Mode Craze May Do More Harm than Good – This is Why | Log In/Create an Account | Top | 95 comments | Search Discussion
Display Options Threshold/Breakthrough Mark All as Read Mark All as Unread
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.

  • (Score: 3, Insightful) by RamiK on Saturday October 26 2019, @04:25PM (1 child)

    by RamiK (1813) on Saturday October 26 2019, @04:25PM (#912115)

    People are so damn irrational these days that they would rather spend hours setting every single piece of software to a dark theme

    Contrast and readability drop with the brightness so with a black-on-white theme you choose between straining your eyes or losing screen real-estate as you try to drop the resolution or increase the font's height to compensate. On smartphones it's even worse for people using the likes of whatsapp where they'd have to keep going back and forth from high brightness when watching videos to lower brightness when texting.

    --
    compiling...
    Starting Score:    1  point
    Moderation   +1  
       Insightful=1, Total=1
    Extra 'Insightful' Modifier   0  
    Karma-Bonus Modifier   +1  
    Total Score:   3  

  • (Score: 1) by zion-fueled on Saturday October 26 2019, @10:38PM

    by zion-fueled (8646) on Saturday October 26 2019, @10:38PM (#912209)

    This. My brightness is low already. I still get blasted with the white light, or rather blue light since its an LCD. It's sure fun when you're watching shows at night and trying to get sleepy.