i'm sure this is unpopular, but I think dark mode was an (understandable) mistake

in my made up, undersourced version of tech history, what happened was that the first LCDs that came out were very dim compared to the CRTs they were replacing, which OS makers responded to by going to very bright/white UIs over the previous gray/color schemes that were used and everyone cranked their brightness to 11. Over time LCDs improved and the new white-standard/high brightness regime became untenable for people who were on their screens for long periods of time, which drove the creation of dark mode, first in coding themes and later for the entire OS.

Dark mode support makes it VERY hard to do a website well because it is almost always going to look mediocre in one mode or the other and it is very easy for a gremlin to sneak in in the mode that a developer isn't using.

I would love to go back to a gray-base color and use a mildly muted white for a reading background and dark for code/special content. The hyperscript website is kind of a gesture in this direction: https://hyperscript.org/

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Firehawke 3 hours ago | parent | next [-]

As someone who has moderate to fairly heavy lighht sensitivity when I'm not dealing with migraines and extremely heavy light sensitvity with headaches, I'm just going to say that you're absolutely wrong here.

Not every user has the same physiology. Dark mode is an accessibility option for a fair number of us.

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loloquwowndueo 3 hours ago | parent [-]

Can flip this around: lots of websites now default to dark mode because reasons, and dark mode is very difficult for me to read (all blurry, also gives me a headache after a while).

	▲	acdha 2 hours ago \| parent \| next [-]
		Yes, the correct way to approach this is to make good versions of both and respect the user’s preference. Font size is similar: you’ll never make everyone happy with a single choice so you should respect the user’s ability to know what they need.
	▲	cassianoleal 3 hours ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		I think both dark and light modes are an accessibility option.

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seanwilson 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Some recommendations based on studies here https://www.nngroup.com/articles/dark-mode/

> In people with normal vision (or corrected-to-normal vision), visual performance tends to be better with light mode, whereas some people with cataract and related disorders may perform better with dark mode. On the flip side, long-term reading in light mode may be associated with myopia.

> we strongly recommend that designers allow users to switch to dark mode if they want to — for three reasons: (1) there may be long-term effects associated with light mode; (2) some people with visual impairments will do better with dark mode; and (3) some users simply like dark mode better.

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al_borland 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

> the first LCDs that came out were very dim compared to the CRTs they were replacing

Maybe this was true on laptops, but I remember my first experience with an LCD on a desktop was with the G4 iMac in 2003. I remember it came out of the box set to 100% brightness and it hurt my eyes to use it. It took me a little while to figure out how to turn it down so I could use it pain free.

Before that iMac I had a Thinkpad with Windows 2000, which was very gray. I don’t remember having problems. The shift to white seemed to come after LCDs were already pretty capable.

In my memory dark mode seemed to come much later, as people would use their smartphones in bed and be blinded by the light coming off a white webpage background. There was a vocal minority that then pushed for dark mode on everything. It is possible that before that was the idea that dark mode would use less energy and we should do it to save the planet. I seem to remember that fad for a while, but don’t recall where it fit in the timeline.

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cosmic_cheese 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

I would tie the sudden demand and popularity of dark mode not with LCDs, but with the advent of flat design (Metro, Material, etc), which replaced the midtones of previous themes with stark, blinding whites and scarcely darker grays. The difference is particularly striking in iOS native apps pre and post-iOS 7 — iOS 6 and prior was even more midtone-weighted than its desktop contemporaries.

I was perfectly happy to use iOS 6, OS X 10.9 Mavericks, and Windows 7 without dark mode on LCDs, outside of code editors (there, I liked those dark even before because it makes syntax highlighting “pop” much better). It was only after those releases when I started wanting dark mode.

We have to get away from printer paper light mode themes.