
Dark Mode by Default – 95% of People Prefer Dark over Light Mode - burtonator
https://getpolarized.io/2019/11/25/Dark-Mode-Should-Be-The-Default-With-95-Percent-Preferring-it-Over-Light-Mode.html
======
whack
It seems that their data is mostly coming from their own user base (the
discord data is biased as they admitted), which is mostly comprised of
programmers and other techies. I don't know how far this generalizes to the
rest of society.

I personally like dark mode during night time, but almost always prefer light
mode by default. There's just something about dark mode that is... gloomy and
depressing. It feels like an overcast day, whereas light mode feels like a
bright sunny day. I've noticed that most techies do prefer dark mode, and I
also recall reading that techies are disproportionately night owls - I wonder
if there's a correlation there. I suspect though that this preference is
reversed for the general population.

~~~
AnIdiotOnTheNet
> I've noticed that most techies do prefer dark mode, and I also recall
> reading that techies are disproportionately night owls - I wonder if there's
> a correlation there.

If I may be mildly unflattering for a moment, I think it's just a trendiness
thing. Dark Mode looks more like a terminal and signals "I'm a real big-boy
hackerman" or something.

If someone has real data showing it actually causes less eyestrain or
something, I'm willing to change that opinion.

~~~
whycombagator
I'm sure everyone has their own specific reasons. And what you suggest might
be true for a subset of individuals. For me, I prefer dark mode for a couple
of sight related reasons:

\- It makes my eye floaters much harder to notice

\- Light backgrounds on screens, especially white, tend to hurt my eyes more
than darker ones

~~~
lloeki
> Light backgrounds on screens, especially white, tend to hurt my eyes more
> than darker ones

It was (and still is, but read on) for me until I realised that it was not
light mode but _backlight_ that was too strong. It was actually initially
better with dark modes, low contrast stuff like zenburn, or (solarize light or
dark) but only got worse later.

The moment I realised that was a backlight (and ambient light, including
temperature) issue I moved back to light mode.

The above mentioned solutions have the nasty side effect that people usually
increase backlight, which just makes things even worse!

~~~
whycombagator
I usually have the brightness on all my devices very low (10-20% typically,
but have to go 100% if I’m outside and it’s particularly bright).

I also use f.lux/nightmode on all devices.

~~~
yorwba
I usually have my phone at 0% brightness, but that I can still see something
is a clear indication it's not actually 0%. The screen is still too bright for
me if it's the only light source. Same for audio; I basically only switch
between mute and minimum volume because everything above is too loud for me.

I hate that there's no way to acess more fine-grained levels below the
arbitrarily imposed minimum. I realize most people would think their phone is
broken if they could get it into a state where it doesn't produce any
perceivable output despite not being explicitly off. I just wish there were
some secret handshake I could use to confirm that I'm okay with having to find
the brightness control while not being able to see anything; I already do that
when I'm outside in the bright sun.

~~~
pmahoney
On my phone running iOS, in addition to the brightness slider there is an
option under Settings -> General -> Accessibility Display Accommodations to
"Reduce White Point", which I can use to further dim the screen.

~~~
kohtatsu
I think this is nearly identical to using a dark theme; it doesn't actually
reduce the brightness of the backlighting.

I have been wondering for a long time what determines the backlight minimum,
why can't we go darker? Surely phones can be expected to be used in pitch
black?

------
Wowfunhappy
The recent trend of introducing separate "light" and "dark" modes is a band-
aid solution to the larger problem: modern interfaces lack contrast.
Everything is either mostly-bright or mostly-dark, and I find both physically
tiring.

I was playing around with a virtualized copy of Snow Leopard last weekend.
Coming from modern macOS, what I find most visually striking is always the
range of tones. The beautifully deep gray window chrome fades into the
background, and pushes white content to the forefront without rendering it
blindingly bright. Colored accents on interactable elements make the interface
easy to scan. When I squint, I can still see everything.

You'd never consider adding a dark mode to this interface—or at least, I
personally can't imagine what one would look like, because the interface is
neither light nor dark to begin with. The result is far easier on my eyes.

~~~
crazygringo
That's a great point -- before Microsoft introduced "flat design" which
everyone else then copied (both Apple and Google), there was both a lot more
variation in background colors _and_ varied usage of color generally.

I understand and sympathize with the philosophy behind flat design -- that it
intentionally puts the interface in the background (low contrast, less
variation), so whatever content you're consuming (photos, videos, book text)
is the focus.

But I also sympathize with your point -- that when you _want_ to use the
interface to _do_ stuff rather than merely scroll through content, it's simply
_harder_ now.

------
CharlesW
It's novel right now, just as dark-on-light displays were novel when Lisa and
Macintosh were introduced. Also, I suspect nostalgia (or anemoia) is involved.

However, research shows that dark-on-light (positive polarity) displays are
better for most people most of the time, with some exceptions.

For those who want to go deeper, several studies and papers are cited in the
article _The Dark Side of Dark Mode_ : [https://tidbits.com/2019/05/31/the-
dark-side-of-dark-mode/](https://tidbits.com/2019/05/31/the-dark-side-of-dark-
mode/)

~~~
clumsysmurf
I have cataracts just outside the center of my vision, and they are more
visible against a white background. For this reason I prefer dark mode, as
they are not visible, they just distort.

------
kleer001
Personally I can't stand dark mode. It literally hurts my eyes. Strain after a
few moments and interlacing ghost lines that linger in my vision for a minute.

Does anyone else have this?

Is it brain cancer?!

edit: Thanks, I'm pretty sure it's not cancer.

Question: But why me? Age? Staring too long at monitors? Drugs? It doesn't
seem to effect too many others.

~~~
sprayk
Dark mode can cause strain on eyes. Lower total brightness means your pupils
open up to be able to take in more light. Wider pupils means lower depth of
field, i.e. less stuff in focus immediately in front of/behind whatever you
are currently focused on. You are more susceptible to having to refocus from
subtle movements with a lower depth of field. The less of a steady state your
focus, the more the muscles involved in focusing are engaged, which might be a
cause of the strain you are feeling.

Similarly, this is why your eyes can hurt while reading in dimmer settings.
It's not because low light itself is somehow harmful while reading, but
because your eyes have a harder time staying focused as you naturally move
while reading.

edit: I adopted light themes everywhere after reading this, probably
[https://ux.stackexchange.com/a/53268](https://ux.stackexchange.com/a/53268) .
Knowing depth of field from photography helped this make sense, as well as
understanding (from conversations with a doctor in my family) that the generic
feeling "strain" is most likely associated with muscle activity than anything
else.

~~~
inciampati
I use dark mode with large text for this reason. It's definitely true that you
can read smaller text with light backgrounds, but the comfort is higher for me
with less light from the screen, so I'm ok with less info on the screen and
dark background.

------
dpcan
I don't know many people my age who can still handle dark mode.

It was easy for me many years ago. I looked at command lines all day and no
problem.

Now I see blurry lines for 10 minutes all around me if I have to spend any
length of time in a command line interface, or look at an article in dark
mode.

This is, unfortunately, an accessibility issue, not a design issue.

~~~
robotron
I'm older, my eyes are getting pretty bad, and I have to have dark mode. This
is why data on this is important.

~~~
AnIdiotOnTheNet
I'd say this is why we need software to respect accessibility and
configurability. We didn't need "Dark Mode" in Windows 95 because we could
configure the crap out of our native widgets. Then using the web as an
application platform became a thing, accessibility was jettisoned in the name
of "muh design!" and all personal computing has suffered for it.

------
NauticalStu
I wish there were more "medium" themes.

I usually find light modes too harsh, but I think that's because the
background is often pure white or close to it, as opposed to something softer.

I think dark modes look cooler and I like the aesthetic from an artsy
perspective, but they're not something I enjoy working in all day. I like the
lower contrast ones to an extent, but they're still not ideal.

My preferred Visual Studio theme has been Humane, which is one of the rare
ones that fall somewhere in between. I tweaked it to make it a tad darker, but
was fairly happy with it out of the box. In any case, I feel like these kinds
of themes are underrepresented; there is an overwhelming number of dark and
light themes out there (mostly tweaks of other themes, or just plain bad) and
I really wish more would aim for the middle ground. Largely because I'm
actually not a fan of the color brown and would like to see a semi-light theme
based on something else, haha.

[https://damieng.com/blog/2007/10/14/colour-schemes-for-
visua...](https://damieng.com/blog/2007/10/14/colour-schemes-for-visual-
studio)

~~~
bobbylarrybobby
I like Gruvbox for the same reason

------
zeroxx1986
The problem is, that many of the developers are mistaking the Dark mode with
BLACK mode (like Opera GX, Telegram's night mode, Android's [MIUI's] dark
theme, and similar themed applications). Dark mode - as with Discord - is
really about having the contrast _reduced_ and overall making the whole
experience more dark greyish, which reduces strain on the eyes. Try this with
BLACK instead, and you'll start to cry after a couple of minutes (yes, I know,
I'm old and grumpy..). The very popular dark themes, like Monokai are popular
exactly because they respect these very simple rules: 1. dark does NOT mean
black, 2. reduce overall contrast. I personally HATE the fact, that with Opera
GX for example, you don't even have the _ability_ to choose if you would like
to use the Dark mode (which is, again, BLACK mode in reality).

~~~
sprayk
how does lower contrast reduce strain on eyes?

~~~
zeroxx1986
I think this article sums up pretty nicely the reasons. Go to the chapter 'Do
dark themes help your eyes?': [https://www.maketecheasier.com/are-dark-themes-
better-for-ey...](https://www.maketecheasier.com/are-dark-themes-better-for-
eyes-battery/)

------
crazygringo
Dark mode is great when you're using a screen casually close to bedtime and
don't want a painful bright light.

It's also great when you're doing image or video editing and need to be able
to see full contrast in the dark areas, without being overwhemlmed by bright
light surrounding.

 _But_ it's objectively _far_ worse if you're reading significant amounts of
text, for the simple optical reason that light bleeds inside of lenses,
including in your eyes -- that white "pollutes" black but not vice-versa.

Thus with black-on-white text, letterforms stay separate, clear, and legible.
Any light spreading simply makes the letterforms appear, say, at 10%
brightness instead of 0% brightness. Zero problems with legibility, still
plenty of contrast.

But with white-on-black, letterforms glow with blurry edges and connect into
each other. Not on the screen, but on your retina. The same way streetlamps at
night appear to have a halo. Words take more effort to read. Now granted, if
you're 15 years old with perfect vision, it may not be particularly noticeable
or objectionable. But the older you get or worse eyesight you have, the more
it becomes a big problem.

So dark mode is nice to have, but for most apps going dark-only is objectively
bad for accessibility, and legibility generally.

~~~
Izkata
> But with white-on-black, letterforms glow with blurry edges and connect into
> each other. Not on the screen, but on your retina. The same way streetlamps
> at night appear to have a halo. Words take more effort to read.

I, uh, don't see a halo. Never have. I see streaks/starbursts, kinda like this
quora post [0], except I've seen streetlights like that my whole life (so I
don't think it's an eye problem like they suggest). Maybe that influences why
I find dark mode easier on the eyes? No blurring, but it's also not sharp
enough to cause the starburst.

[0] [https://www.quora.com/What-are-those-peripheral-rays-of-
ligh...](https://www.quora.com/What-are-those-peripheral-rays-of-light-I-see-
whenever-I-stare-at-a-bright-light-at-night)

------
coldcode
95% of what people? I know people of both persuasions in about equal numbers,
which makes me question the 95% number. Personally I hate dark mode except
late at night as staring at a dark screen and then walking away from my desk
makes me dizzy.

~~~
wolco
This isn't 95% of the population. This is 95% prefer dark becausw the light
version is awful.

More of a click-bait title than necessary. 95% of discord users prefer dark
would be more accurate.

------
Shank
I'm definitely in the camp that light / dark mode should match the time of day
or ambient light level. I love having "light mode" in the morning, but at
night I always prefer dark mode. But this is because I have a huge amount of
ambient light in the room in the day, and at night I have none. Dark mode is
unreadable to me when the bright sun is shining on a monitor. Not so with
light mode.

------
mixmastamyk
In the old days, apps simply used the system color scheme. That allowed one to
globally choose what they wanted. Now everyone has to implement light and dark
“skinz.” Color me not impressed.

~~~
dtech
Users also expect prettier designs than the standard GUI widgets from the OS
nowadays. Custom themes also could lead to ugly visuals in apps and
accessibility problems.

~~~
AnIdiotOnTheNet
Not really. Designers expect prettier designs than standard GUI widgets, I'm
not convinced users have _ever_ wanted non-standard widgets. In fact, more
than a decade of bitching-about-java has taught me that users _hate_ non-
native widgets. But hey, developers love them so fuck users.

Native widgets play significantly better with all accessibility tools, in part
_because_ native widgets are so customizable. You didn't need bespoke "Dark
Mode" that was some designer's wet dream of what an interface should look
like, you could just customize your widgets for what you needed:
[https://66.media.tumblr.com/19cb7fe3e0eef36debbd0167d6e6e0ea...](https://66.media.tumblr.com/19cb7fe3e0eef36debbd0167d6e6e0ea/tumblr_mwjaieyign1t2as4so5_1280.png)

------
Razengan
I wish HN would get a dark mode, and I don’t know why major apps like WhatsApp
etc. are still dragging their asses over dark mode support while smaller apps
with more complex UIs have already supported it for months.

~~~
dewey
Maybe because the small apps have a very targeted audience that enjoys dark
mode. If you ask 10 random people on the street only 1 will probably know what
“dark mode” is or would think about actively switching to it.

~~~
threatofrain
Dark mode is a talking point for both iOS and Android imo.

------
unglaublich
After trying both light and dark themed interfaces for a few years, I
concluded that for me there's only one setup that works: light theme with low
brightness (monitor setting) and 'flux'/'night light'. That way, my monitor
looks just like everything else in my office, like reading a newspaper. That's
one of the many ergonomic improvements that help me stay alive.

~~~
fhennig
Yes, I think that's the sanest choice. Also doesn't require a lot of theming
(and some applications don't have themes) or other weird stuff (inverting
colors on pdfs?).

Also reducing the backlight saves battery.

But I still think that a little bit more low-contrast would be nice.

------
ilikehurdles
While I also prefer dark mode overall, the majority of dark editor color
schemes strain my eyes more than light ones. Primarily this is because they
use really bright saturated colors or solid white text on dark backgrounds,
which makes my eyes strain as if they are looking at LED headlights during a
night drive. OS X uses nice muted yet distinct colors on both ends of the
brightness spectrum. I wish I could find an IntelliJ theme that matches the
same spirit.

~~~
burtonator
Yes. SOLID white #ffffff on black #000000 is a rough scheme. The whites need
to be muted a bit so they're light grey basically.

~~~
jrockway
I used grey on black for many years but recently switched to pure white. It is
much easier to read.

I have my monitors set fairly dim, about 120cd/m^2. This is what most
colorspaces expect the whitepoint to be, but it is very dim compared to the
maximum amount of light a monitor can put out. It is about 12/100 on my
monitor.

[https://hub.displaycal.net/forums/topic/what-monitor-
brightn...](https://hub.displaycal.net/forums/topic/what-monitor-brightness-
is-recommended/)

Anyway, my point here is that #ffffff is not any sort of color you can see,
merely a number that represents the maximum possible amount of red, green, and
blue. If that's too much light, you can turn it down. You can also play with
gamma curves to change the relative intensities down to pure black. Some
people use 2.2 in dark rooms and 2.4 for "normal" indoor illumination.

------
AlexandrB
People like novelty. Dark mode is something new in UX design. I'm not sure I'd
read into it any more than that until a few more years pass.

~~~
dageshi
Dark modes are a lot easier on the eyes if you spend a lot of time infront of
screens and to greater and lesser extent _everybody_ spends lots of time
infront of screens nowadays.

That being said, I have pretty good luck with browser plugins that auto dark
mode websites reasonably well. I'm not sure I'd go redesigning the entire web
with darkmodes in mind when plugins can do a good enough job.

~~~
b3kart
> Dark modes are a lot easier on the eyes if you spend a lot of time infront
> of screens

[citation needed]. Why do people keep making these general statements. Every
time they do counter-examples immediately appear in replies. Why can't we all
agree that we're all different and it's largely a matter of preference.

------
tomatsu
I prefer light mode + f.lux or Redshift.

There's no need to stare at cold blue light all day long.

Fun fact, there is actually a CSS media query for selecting dark/light themes:

[https://developer.mozilla.org/en-
US/docs/Web/CSS/@media/pref...](https://developer.mozilla.org/en-
US/docs/Web/CSS/@media/prefers-color-scheme)

------
petercooper
I far prefer dark mode for "chrome" and OS theming, etc. but _not_ for
documents. So the idea that just because I have dark mode selected means I
want every site to look like a porn site and my emails to all have back
backgrounds is very wrong. I want normal documents, just as they were, but
with a dark _theme_ around them.

------
gwern
This seems like something where 'cheap talk' is a serious problem. You're not
even surveying or polling users, you're hearing from self-selected ones. And
even if you get a representative sample, what people say is different from
what they do: users may not even know if they genuinely prefer it. Lots of
design is subconscious, and there are measurable effects like additional
milliseconds in loadtime where I doubt anyone would ordinarily be able to
notice without sitting down with a stopwatch - it just _feels_ worse.

If it is really impossible to support more than one theme in the long run,
this seems like a perfect use-case for an A/B test: randomize half your users
into dark-mode and half into light-mode, and track total attrition and
activity over the next few months (and not some proxy variable, switching to
dark mode is too important to use some unreliable intermediate measurement).

------
peterfisher
this is frustrating because I have diplopia and so my life looks like:
[https://i.imgur.com/IHWBflS.png](https://i.imgur.com/IHWBflS.png) when you
have white text on a black background. This affect doesn't happen on "light"
mode systems...

~~~
rightbyte
Funny. I thought that's how bright on dark text looked for everyone. Couldn't
see the shadow until I tilted the screen.

Do I have diplopia or do people with diplopia see more of the effect?

~~~
jessaustin
I just switched back and forth from vi in my terminal to that image a couple
of times. I see the blurring on that image immediately, every time. I don't
see anything like that on the terminal.

------
oblib
I only have a few apps on my old Mac that have a dark mode UI. Pixelmator is
one of them and the small tool windows blend into each other and it's hard for
me to discern their boundaries. And I strain with the tiny text on them. I
really wish it had an option to turn that off and rarely use it because I
can't.

I don't like it at all. Makes me wonder if it's because I'm getting old and my
vision isn't aa sharp as it used to be.

My main monitor has a "low blue light" setting that I do like though. It took
me a bit to get used to it but I can really feel the difference if I turn it
off now. I've since adjusted my two peripheral monitors to lower the blue
light settings and that's helped reduce eye strain a lot for me.

------
eddyg
The Dark Side of Dark Mode [https://tidbits.com/2019/05/31/the-dark-side-of-
dark-mode/](https://tidbits.com/2019/05/31/the-dark-side-of-dark-mode/)

"To summarize, a dark-on-light (positive polarity) display like a Mac in Light
Mode provides better performance in focusing of the eye, identifying letters,
transcribing letters, text comprehension, reading speed, and proofreading
performance, and at least some older studies suggest that using a positive
polarity display results in less visual fatigue and increased visual comfort.
The benefits apply to both the young and the old, as that paper concludes"

------
JohnFen
I hate dark modes, but I don't actually care what the default is -- as long as
I can still set a light mode.

------
120bits
I have using VI for years now and I prefer black background with green text,
and I'm sure most people do. When I transitioned over to a modern IDE
Atom/Code/Sublime, the first thing I wanted was to have a decent dark theme. I
did try few of them but it was hard on my eyes(maybe because my eyes have
adjusted to what I have been looking at for years) I finally settled on Code
editor and its been ok so far.

~~~
roland35
Badwolf is my personal favorite dark theme: a nice black with orange and red.

------
vecplane
Dark mode is my favorite and I appreciate more apps and websites adding
support. Recently I've seen Slack and Perforce finally get official dark
themes.

For websites that don't have good dark themes or user styles, you can use the
Dark Reader browser extension to toggle it on any website -
[https://darkreader.org/](https://darkreader.org/)

------
makecheck
The main problem with this being a “mode” is that I don’t want it in 100% of
cases. For instance, on the Mac it was originally possible to darken only the
menu bar but now that is only allowed if _everything_ is dark. Frankly, in
many cases it makes more sense to mix these effects, e.g. it might also be
nice to have darkened sidebars in lighter windows.

Another reason I don’t want it on all the time is because a lot of things
still have _really terrible_ Dark themes, to the point of being eyesores. It
is amazing how much more the choice of colors matters in dark themes, and if
this is wrong it is almost unusable.

Some web sites had long used primarily-light or primarily-dark themes, and it
is now weird that some of them try to “adapt” to your dark/light “mode”.
Frankly, it usually looks worse when they switch to their less-refined
alternative and I would rather they either put a lot more effort in to both
themes or just keep the original look in all cases.

------
peterwwillis
Can someone post some links to studies? I remember reading that your screen
brightness should be close to the ambient light level, and it does help my
eyes when I do that adjustment, but I don't know why. White screen = brighter
screen, so dark screens at night would make a less-bright screen, and vice
versa, which seems to back up the theory.

------
Sohcahtoa82
I wonder if there's a correlation between how lit people's environments are
and their dark/light mode preference.

I usually prefer light themes, and I keep my computer room pretty well lit and
I _never_ use my phone in bed, so I never find light themes to be blinding.
The brightness of the screen matches my environment.

------
heavymark
URL goes to Localhost, assuming they meant o have
[https://getpolarized.io/2019/11/25/Dark-Mode-Should-Be-
The-D...](https://getpolarized.io/2019/11/25/Dark-Mode-Should-Be-The-Default-
With-95-Percent-Preferring-it-Over-Light-Mode.html)

~~~
cygned
The canonical URL in the meta data is wrong, points to localhost:4000.

------
antonyh
Dark mode turns laptops into mirrors, especially if they are glossy. Any
office that has overhead tube lights is a poor match for dark mode apps. I
even go with light terminal schemes in this case, and I have a strong
preference towards dark console apps.

It's even worse with laptops where screens are angled slightly towards the
ceiling.

Same goes with IDEs - I use dark in the evening, when there's low light, and
light schemes in offices - just to reduce contrast between screen and rest of
world, and to eliminate mirror effects on the display.

Mobile apps however, light mode all the way! I just turn the brightness down.
Glowing text is painful on small screens.

------
USNetizen
Am I the only one where "dark mode" interfaces really screw with the eyes?

~~~
wrs
No, you are not. :) People have been looking at dark words on white paper for
quite a while now with no ill effects, and I’ve never felt an inclination to
invert the relationship. Even in 1980 I preferred the very few CRT terminals
that operated in “light mode”.

------
ncmncm
Translated to actual, y'know, facts, 95% of people don't change Discord from
the default, before most stop using it at all.

This has exactly zero usefulness as an measure of what any group (even Discord
users) prefers.

------
Justsignedup
The funny thing is that Dark vs Light mode is actually not an absolute.

Personally I prefer dark modes.

Currently I use light modes.

Why? Because when there is a possibility of glare, light mode dominates. By
far. At work there is a high probability of glare. My quality of life improved
drastically when I switched to light mode for everything. Even my terminal.

When the room is dark, dark mode is way easier on the eyes.

So really what we need isn't one preference, but a variation based on lighting
conditions of the room. A color sensor on the monitor could easily determine
which of the two to use.

Not practical ATM. Oh well.

------
IronWolve
Been using dark reader addon in both chrome/firefox, and love it. Bright white
in the eyes when your trying to relax and read is amazingly offensive. I use
it on HackerNews too.

~~~
acheron
Thanks for this recommendation. Just installed it.

------
api
I think the rise of dark mode is mostly related to really good displays. Dark
mode looks like shit on CRTs and even older flat panels with poor contrast.

~~~
JoshTriplett
And OLEDs in particular, where black stops transmitting light at all. (And
saves power, too.)

~~~
burtonator
Heck yeah. Totally agree. For my app I'm working on dark true dark modes and
then try to do true dark/true black on mobile.

Black looks much better on mobile IMO ...

~~~
seemack
Neat tidbit that I learned while working on dark mode at my company. Don't use
true black. It looks amazing on OLED screens at rest but it results in a weird
sluggish appearance when scrolling. This is because there is a lag time
between pixels going from off to on.

The material team at Google made a blog post about it which I recommend going
through: [https://material.io/design/color/dark-
theme.html](https://material.io/design/color/dark-theme.html)

The quote around the OLED: "On OLED screens, turning pixels on and off can
cause a delay when the screen is scrolled, making the pixels blur."

As an example, the facebook messenger app uses a true black background and the
delay is _very_ noticeable.

------
tmm84
I think most tend to want dark mode because as humans a sea of white or some
off shade of white requires so much attention from our brains to constantly
scan/identify things that stand out (much like a blinking red button). I try
to use light yellow/orange/brown and depending on overcast/night I'll switch
to a shade of purple/green. I can't stand super dark themes.

------
acd
I prefer light mode by default. I think there should be an os level setting if
you prefer dark or light mode.

And yes there is a certain level of fashion between dark and light mode which
seems to move back and forwards every now and then. This reminds me somehow of
the moves between Terminal(thin) -> Server(thick) to Workstation(thick) ->
Tablet(Thin) -> Cloud(Thick) -> Client side(Thick).

------
ConcernedCoder
I was told long ago in the newspaper business that "dark mode" ( background
darker than foreground ) was unprofessional / hacker looking, and "light mode"
( background lighter than foreground ) was the opposite, and I wonder if that
generality still holds true in the corporate world?

------
kleer001
As long as there's a choice between dark and light mode I'm happy. Heck I
don't even really need a customizable interface color setup anymore, I've
given up on that.

IMHO "Hot Dog Stand" on Windows 3.1 was the best it could ever be. Dear god
don't let Hot Dog Stand be the default.

------
cryptos
Light themes are superior from a usability standpoint:
[https://ux.stackexchange.com/questions/53264/dark-or-
white-c...](https://ux.stackexchange.com/questions/53264/dark-or-white-color-
theme-is-better-for-the-eyes)

------
dep_b
I find default dark mode all of the day super depressing but later at night I
find it easier to use with the lights out. So the balance iOS uses for auto
enabling dark mode to me is pretty good. It would be nice if more websites
would allow me to use it but at least reader mode supports it.

------
jbritton
Black text on white background may lead to myopia and white text on black
background may be preventive.
[https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-018-28904-x](https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-018-28904-x)

------
antonyh
Instant 'dark mode' bookmarklet / scriptlet:

javascript:(function(){body=document.getElementsByTagName('body')[0];body.style.backgroundColor='black';body.style.filter='invert(100%)';})();

If only I could work out how to stop it from inverting the images too....

~~~
jraph
Maybe you can apply the invert property on images too?

But you might be interested in these browser extensions:

\- Dark Reader

\- Dark Background and Light Text

------
boyadjian
It's not a problem of dark or light. It's a problem that choosing white @ 6500
K as background color is perfectly stupid. Default backgrounds for windows and
internet sites should be sepia. That's what do Amazon with Kindle software,
very successfully.

------
mmanfrin
I wish I could make the general internet dark mode (and I've tried extensions,
they don't work all that well). Give me a dark mode HN. White backgrounds hurt
my eyes. I'm looking at screens upwards of 16 hours a day, let me reduce some
of that strain.

~~~
b3kart
> I'm looking at screens upwards of 16 hours a day

I wonder why white backgrounds hurt your eyes...

------
wenc
I like dark mode -- it has a sleek aesthetic.

The only time dark mode is bad is when you're doing a product demo in a
darkened room, like at a conference. It's really hard to make out text in dark
mode in a dark room.

------
rammy1234
When you open your app, It says we collect cookies for feature usage. There is
only one button "Accept". Where is this button called "Decline" ?

------
ww520
System wide dark mode theme is only a recent thing. Browsers only recently
added support for prefers-color-scheme to allow web pages to query system
theme.

------
Ididntdothis
I switch back and forth from time to time. For a while I like dark until I get
bored with it. Then I switch to light until I get bored.

------
dfawcus
Or for the Mac, just leave the machine in normal mode, and use the "invert
colours" hotkey.

I've been doing that for years.

------
mark-r
Anybody else find it ironic that this revelation was made on a blog with black
text on a white background?

------
thrax
The first Macintosh UI was kinda the backlash to the default night mode of the
original dos boxes.

------
sekou
Are there any efforts to standardize a way to default to a dark color scheme
if a website has it?

~~~
fanf2
The prefers-color-scheme media query

[https://developer.mozilla.org/en-
US/docs/Web/CSS/@media/pref...](https://developer.mozilla.org/en-
US/docs/Web/CSS/@media/prefers-color-scheme)

------
excalibur
I immediately thought of this article:

[https://thenextweb.com/plugged/2019/11/10/just-putting-it-
ou...](https://thenextweb.com/plugged/2019/11/10/just-putting-it-out-there-
fuck-dark-mode-sucks-worst-awful/)

Just putting it out there: Fuck Callum Booth's opinion.

------
emptybottle
Ironic that this article was published on a website that doesn't use dark
mode.

------
kohtatsu
Does anyone have an iOS Hacker News app that respects the iOS dark mode
setting?

------
vsyu
I heard dark mode might not actually help in terms of being easier on the
eyes?

------
zepto
This could easily just be a fashion trend.

------
imdsm
I am the 5%

------
rayascott
I don't like dark mode.

------
acheron
Take note, web designers.

------
memossy
Left shift + left alt + PrtSc = dark mode for word and all sorts via high
contrast mode on Windows

~~~
void445be54d48a
High contrast mode is not dark mode.

~~~
antonyh
It makes web pages like HN dark (in FF). I don't get why it takes so long to
do it though, so toggling it is frustrating, and the side effects are pretty
horrific as it throws boxes around everything.

