how dark mode killed good design

- I've been a

dark

mode

user for basically as long as I can remember. Mainly because it seems like the alternative requires eclipse glasses. And I kind of assumed that everyone on the Internet agreed. Dark

mode

is better than light mode. Look at that versus that. - Bro, eww. -But after an argument with friends turned into an obsession, I accidentally spent weeks researching the rise and risks of

dark

mode. And I'm starting to worry that dark mode is killing

good

design

. Thanks to Hostinger for sponsoring this video and to our sponsors for supporting the channel. Do you use dark mode on your phone? - No. - Why did you say that as an insult, Melissa? - Would you like to read a book as if you were reading a website from 2008 on the dark web? - Do you think the dark web is just dark websites?

Is this what you think the dark web is? Listen, everyone knows this is a dumb conversation that no one should have because dark mode is

good

when it's dark and light mode is good when it's light. - No dark mode is supposed to be easier, it's better for your eyes like all the time. - Why isn't it called "better for your eyes all the time" mode? - No, I swear, did I ever read something that seemed easier to read? - Says who? - It's easier to read. if it's dark. - Says who? Says who. - So, in case you didn't know, the mission of this channel is to encourage curiosity.

That means I don't think there are any stupid questions. At least until I heard Taha and Melissa question dark mode. But they're my friends, so I'll do the nice thing and spend way too much time trying to prove them wrong. Oh, that rhymes. Let's do it. I started by reading articles and Reddit threads to go over why people think dark mode is better than light mode. The idea is. Why are they there? Come here. The idea is that if I can prove these claims to be true, then dark mode wins. If I can't, I don't want to think about it.

The whole process took a little more than an afternoon, but I eventually discovered that the entire debate can basically be summed up in three statements. It's better for your health at night, uses less battery, and is easier to read. So I did some academic research into those claims. Very easy. There are not so many. But this is what I found. The health argument claims that dark mode reduces the amount of blue light reaching your eyes, improving your sleep, and the lower overall brightness reduces eye strain. However, it's still up for debate whether like color alone really affects your sleep that much.

And while many people, myself included, use dark mode because light mode feels like a flash bomb, it's probably not the main source of eye strain. In dark rooms, the pupils expand, making it difficult to focus your vision, which can lead to fatigue. Therefore, if you use your phone at night, it may be better to illuminate the surroundings rather than darken the screen. But if you really care about the health of your eyes, unfortunately the best option is obvious. You have to stop using your phone so much. When we look at a screen, we end up blinking surprisingly less than usual, which causes dry eyes.

And research is emerging that indicates that an entire generation of children with iPads have worse vision because of it. But let's say you don't really care and just want to use your phone as much as possible. Dark mode can definitely help. On OLED displays, which is becoming the norm in modern mobile devices, displaying darker colors requires less battery power. Then all that's left is readability. There are now some articles exploring whether it is easier to read in dark mode. However, these sample groups can vary a lot and I'm a little concerned that they may not accurately reflect you guys seeing this.

So I did a little experiment. My steampunk phase finally came in handy. To see how display modes affect readability, I coded some games, testing correctness with a typing test and processing speed with a Stroop test. Red. Black. Yellow. And readability with a bunch of different sized characters, kind of like what you see at an ophthalmologist. Z. I created two versions of each game, a light mode and a dark mode. I then use my Hostinger business web hosting plan to bring this project online. If you want to try these games, they are linked in the description. Now I usually upload my files and be done, but it turns out that search engines hate my lazy code.

In fact, if you search for "spelling check game", which is a game I created, I'm the third search result. Second place? Reddit. First place? A complete cheating of my game that I have nothing to do with. Although I asked for it. Cheat my website. So this time I set up a WordPress managed by Hostinger, which comes with a free domain and email, top-notch security, and of course search engine friendly themes. I quickly put the website together and simply embedded my games using custom HTML blocks. And now look at the search results. But the best part is that WordPress comes with a ton of plugins that allow me to take my idea even further than I could with just my coding ability.

I collected a lot of data using a forms plugin and randomized the order in which people viewed a test and whether they viewed a dark mode or light mode version of the website using an AB testing plugin. Science! And then I shared it with all of you and got a reasonable amount of responses. Psychoanalyze! I got over 2000. It was amazing to see how a few lines of code could turn into all this, a complex website with randomized experiments that could reach the entire world. And that's thanks to Hostinger, which brings together all of these resources for a fraction of the usual cost.

Oh. If you go to hostinger. com/answerinprogress, you'll find everything you need to create a website, including a free domain, free website migration, and 24/7 customer support. Honestly, I think it's worth it to just secure your own name, but if you want, you can once again trick my website and try to usurp me in the search results. This time I came prepared. Simply click the link in the description and use the code "Answerinprogress" at checkout. Thanks once again to Hostinger for sponsoring this video and supporting the channel. But now it's time to interpret some results. Alright, I have some graphics for you.

Hmm. Ironically, I think I need to use my code editor in clear mode so you can see my face. Anyway, since we are controlling the time in each trial, we can get an idea of ​​the pandas data frame (intelligible and rambling) composed of the value counts from the original data set. - That? - Okay, ignore all the boring stuff. Basically what this graph shows is that light mode users always scored better when using light mode. On the other hand, dark mode users didn't always fare better with dark mode. When it comes to readability, light mode consistently generated higher scores compared to dark mode, regardless of preference.

And interestingly, this is in line with research that finds that the higher brightness of the light mode actually constricts the pupil to improve vision. The main exception is for people with low vision, where brightness does not matter as much as contrast. So which mode wins? Well, the health of your eyes depends mainly on the time you spend in front of the screen and the battery life depends mainly on the charger. Therefore, you could say that readability is actually the only statement in which the display mode plays the most important role. If that's the case, then light mode wins.

I know it sounds like I'm grasping at straws, and that's because I am. When I started this video, I was hoping to find a clear winner. I wanted it to be dark mode, but I was ready for light mode or adaptive mode. I wasn't prepared for the reality that it doesn't seem to matter. Just like dark mode is technically better for the battery and more ergonomic in dark and light mode it can lead to clearer vision and reduce eye strain because it is very uncomfortable to look at. It will force you to look away from the screen more often, which is actually what helps.

But if we ignore that, all of that is like comparing apples and oranges, the real reason there is no winner is because those apples and oranges are small. These pros and cons have such a marginal effect on everyday life or depend on such specific circumstances that, on average, in most cases, they are not worth mentioning. And I'm not the only one who believes that. - And I would like to show you a new side of Mojave. We call it dark mode. - Well, in 2018, Apple launches dark mode in its Mac operating system. It is based on this update from 2014, where the main focus was only one thing: aesthetics. - And it's so great for professionals that it makes photo content pop off the screen. - So Apple launches dark mode with its main user base in mind, artists and

design

ers who want to be able to focus on their work and also mimic the environments where it can be seen.

Battery life and ergonomics aren't even mentioned. But that doesn't stop a wave of apps and services from using those claims to justify why they started offering dark mode after 2018. And this is very strange to me because after just a week of fairly basic research, I discovered that the The reality of those claims is not as compelling as it originally seems. In general, they are all true, but apparently they are not worth the time, money, and effort of major services to revise their design options to accommodate dark mode. But they did it anyway. And I just want to know why?

Like the real reason. I don't want to sound conspiratorial, but it can't just be battery life and ergonomics, right? So what was it? I started out asking why dark mode was invented because I know it predates Apple in 2018, but the more I searched, the more obvious it became that I was asking the wrong question because it turns out dark mode actually came first. Now, I'm sure many of you already knew this, but for those of us who didn't, here's a quick history lesson. Welcome. When computers first appeared, they used cathode ray tubes or CRT displays. The screen was coated with a phosphor that illuminated when electrons were fired, but technical limitations meant that CRT screens only illuminated when necessary.

This resulted in light content on a dark background. Wait a second. Is that dark mode? Oh! But in the 1980s, we were able to constantly illuminate the entire screen, and computer companies were able to replace text screens with graphical user interfaces. GUI! The term GUI is very disgusting. There were endless possibilities, unlimited design opportunities. So what did they decide? Oh. Making documents look like paper and trash cans look like trash cans wasn't innovative, but that was the point. Personal computers were so new to the average person that designers intentionally closed that knowledge gap by using skeuomorphic design, which mimics tangible objects and experiences in the digital world.

And it turns out that a fairly common physical experience is light mode. But this suggests that dark mode and light mode were not originally intended to compete. They were simply familiar to different groups of people. Interestingly, this also makes them an early example of universal design, as they consider the needs and experience of an individual user. This was surprisingly rare at the time because most things were designed from an individual programmer's perspective or from a marketing perspective. The actual person who was going to use the product was rarely taken into account. And this totally reframes the way I think about dark mode and light mode because I think they were doomed to fail.

You see, I was trying to prove that one display mode was objectively better than the other using averages. But I forgot that good design is not for the average. It is for one person and that person can evolve. When Apple started playing with dark mode in 2014, it coincided with the company's general move away from skeuomorphic design. It was no longer necessary because its ideal user was familiar enough with the technology to be able to adapt to digital-only features like dark mode. So I guess the real winner of the dark mode vs. light mode debate is actually all of us, the people who benefit from the options that come with good, well-thought-out design.

Oh I'm sorry. Fair. . . What the hell? Dark mode has gone too far and is killing good design. Last week, when this video was supposed to end, Apple released iOS 18 and with it aupdate to dark mode, specifically dark mode icons with an optional tint. I wasted another week trying to figure out why it was bothering me so much. - Let's turn it on. Isn't it great? - I thought it was because of the way he clearly doesn't think it's cool, it's pre-recorded. I could have done it again. But I think it's actually because, unlike previous dark mode updates, this time they never specify who they think it's useful for.

Now, usually when the use case isn't obvious, the answer is accessibility, which is great, except that can't be the case here because the photo they used to advertise the dark mode tint feature isn't web compliant . Content accessibility guidelines. Instead, it seems like they've lost sight of what people really want from dark mode. And part of me can't even blame them because over the last 40 years, dark mode has come to represent a lot of different things. Terminal heritage, high contrast, battery efficiency, low brightness, simplification and more. Those are a lot of valid design considerations, but the problem is that Apple didn't want to consider them.

This update seems like Apple did the bare minimum and left the onus on users to figure out how to make it truly useful. It's this laziness that I've found increasingly common in so many apps and services that become so obsessed with offering new features that they've stopped considering how one person, one individual, is going to use them all, making all those options that you once They represented good design, an opportunity for companies to transfer their UX work to us. Or maybe all customization is a good thing and I'm just overthinking it. But either way, have a beautiful day.