Light themes or Dark themes?
Traditionally I've used dark themes for everything I could on all of my devices, as I found it easier on the eyes when I'd usually use my computer (evening - night). Recently, I made the switch back to light stuff as I've been using my computer more for notes and assignments I'd normally hand-write, and I find I get drowsy less and have an easier time using the computer in a bright room than before - I just switched my theme on a whim one morning, so I wasn't expecting that at all!
So now I'm rethinking all my previous bias about dark themes being 'better' regardless of the situation, and I'm curious if anyone here had any thoughts and/or could point me to some reading on the subject (the subject being the effects of light/dark colours in work or concentration). It's something I realize now might be fairly important, as I'm looking at my screen for most of the day, but never really gave much thought before outside of tracking down the 'Dark' theme switch.
I've never understood the attraction of dark themes. To make the text visible against a black background, it has to be a bright colour: either white, or some bright neon-style colour. Those bright colours are annoying to me. Even white on black is strange. Ironically, despite the point of dark themes being that they're darker, to me they feel brighter. All those garish neon-style letters just put me off.
I prefer dark letters against a light background. And I have to say I'm loving the Solarized Light theme here on Tildes. It's much easier on the eyes than having a pure white background. The colours are muted, there's nothing garish about it, and it just works.
It doesn't need a super bright text. I think low contrast works better.
Low contrast probably would work better. But every dark theme I've seen has bright text. For example, all the dark themes here on Tildes have bright text.
I have tried Solarized Dark; that's one of the dark themes here on Tildes that I was referring to. Even though the Solarized Light and Solarized Dark themes use the same font colours, the fonts seem brighter and more garish against the dark background.
Okay. I was wrong about Solarized Light and Dark using the same colours.
However, here is a screenshot which demonstrates the Light and Dark themes, taken from the original Solarized website. Look at the text in Line 20 in that image. The blue text in the first half of that line, in the Light theme, is a dull non-shiny blue. Meanwhile, the blue text in the second half of that line, in the Dark theme, is a bright iridescent blue. Same with the two pinks/reds in surrounding lines: the colour used for text in the Dark theme is brighter because it has to stand out against a black background.
I don't know what I'm supposed to see on this website. It's just showing me some "Lorem ipsum" text in different fonts, and some big green circles underneath.
I need to point this out:
If the contrast ratio is the same in both themes, how is the contrast better in one theme? That seems contradictory. If they're the same, they're equally good or bad. If one is better, they're not the same.
That's just another way of saying that the text in a dark theme is in a brighter colour than the text in a light theme, so that the text in a dark theme stands out more against the background. That's exactly what I've been saying, and that's why dark themes are annoying to me.
Definitely personal preference, but to me they feel darker. Even though the text is darker, when the background is lit up, it fills my peripheral vision and so feels brighter 'cause there's much more light coming off. I guess it depends on how good we are at focusing at a specific point - I have terrible vision and need glasses to correct it, so the glasses might be focusing more of the surrounding light into my eye perhaps. I've also heard astigmatism plays a role, and while I'm not sure whether or not I have it, people who do tend to find it difficult or uncomfortable to see the bright letters on a dark background. It's very common, something like over 50% of the population has it, so that might also explain why you prefer dark text on a light background as well maybe?
This is not the sine qua non that you may think it is. I have a severe astigmatism and I cannot live without my dark modes. Until recently I was even using the iOS Reduce White Point feature (which basically lets you turn the brightness on your display down even more than the OS usually lets you; that's not actually what it does, but it's effectively what it does) because I found my devices to be too bright, sometimes even with dark modes.
There may be a correlation, but it is absolutely not "astigmatism == prefers light mode".
Until a few years ago, I had excellent (above average) eyesight with no defects. Then I started getting the common problem among middle-aged and older people, where I can't focus on tiny text too close to my eyes (I need reading glasses now!). But, apart from that common side effect of aging, my eyesight is good: no astigmatism here (I've had a couple of eye tests in the past decade, including one just a few months ago). So, that's not the reason I prefer dark text on a light background.
It might be the effect of reading
thousandshundreds of print books, andhundredstens of thousands of other printed pages (newspapers, reports, user manuals, official documents, and so on), over my lifetime - all with black text printed on white paper. That display style might have become deeply embedded in my psyche through such prolonged and repeated exposure to it. It just seems natural to me for text to be dark against a light background.EDIT: I think I overstated how much print-based reading I've done in my life.
The capability to switch from light to dark text will become a common standard for digital displays as improvements in screen definition, text rendering, HUDs and augmented reality become more common. Even in this advent of new types of displays, I feel pretty confident predicting that there will still remain a widespread demand for a light page background, such as with the typeset copy of a printed book. (As an example, imagine that you're sitting in the dark, flipping through the glowing white pages of a novel on a translucent screen, or projected onto your retina.) I base my presumption in the various optometry studies I've encountered, which revealed how legibility prefers a light background and sufficiently contrasting text. Some amount of recent research also contradicts this theory, specifically considering certain eyesight disorders.
Depending upon the desired aesthetic, in graphic design for both print and screen within the commercial – largely non-technical – realm, the enlarged typeset elements of a page (headings, call-outs, pull quotes, etc.) will frequently appear in light on dark, for the sake of emphasis. Any sufficient amount of typeset copy is nearly always dark, reasonably high-contrast text, for the sake of the commonly expected standard, which has adapted historically from the hand scripted pages of manuscripts before the invention of the printing press. Bucking this standard has been a common habit since the advent of hypertext, especially in online content that falls outside of the typically commercial realm (e.g. sales and promotional material).
There exists a current popular trend among today's leading digital content providers to provide a dark theme option, secondarily available to a primary light theme. These implementations are always an optional alternative, with the primary intent of providing a "night mode" experience. Though blue light can be filtered, night mode also intends to reduce the amount of blue light exposure without individually filtering the blue light channel separately, which studies overwhelmingly show benefits sleep habits.
Night mode also pleases some particular aesthetic preferences. The option to have a selection of dark themes available is specifically a figment of design trends for digital displays, generally targeted at the tech sector, though probably unlikely to ever become widespread in the overall aesthetics of graphic design. A certain amount of the trend in popular appeal for dark themes arose from the influence and wildly popular appeal of hacker culture. The dark themes on Tildes are in wide use in software applications such as terminal programs, freely liberated and provided by some generous graphic designers who work in digital media, particularly attentive to concepts and best practices of color theory and text legibility.
I personally benefit from dark mode any time I'm surfing in the dark, or when I'd otherwise like to be discreet, perhaps while lying beside a sleeping individual, walking my dogs at night, or awaiting a bus in a sketchy neighborhood. I have also frequently preferred a low-contrast, light scheme on a reduce brightness for the same reasons. I try to have fun with it, but your mileage may vary.
There's plenty of research on this topic and dark text on light background is superior.
https://ux.stackexchange.com/a/53268
Tell my retinas that. I am so sensitive to white backgrounds that I literally have to close my eyes because they get so irritated.
Photophobia can be an indication of other medical issues - if you have an extreme case, or if you haven't always been photophobic, then it might be worthwhile checking in with a medical professional about it.
It's entirely possible that you just are slightly more sensitive to light, though, in which case, I'll share with you the same prescription I have which is highly effective.
I've pretty much always been this way, and it's not extreme to the point of pain, just uncomfortable. I did read the article before posting, so I did consider those things, thank you. :)
I'd consider the sunglasses you linked if my eyes weren't otherwise garbage besides. Still, will try to keep them in mind if I meet anyone with similar issues.
Thanks for the research. I think I've read something like this somewhere along the way.
Not that it matters: this is about my subjective perceptions and personal preferences. But, it's nice to know that science agrees with me!
I prefer the theme depending on the time of day. Dark themes are hard to read and eye-straining in bright sunlight, but light themes cause eyestrain and flood me eyes at night. I prefer to switch themes to adapt to the situation. That being said, I love the aesthetic of dark themes, and bright colors on a dark background are generally more comfortable to me than the other way around. I usually lean dark unless, as mentioned, it's bright outside.
A special exception exists for my phone, because the OLED screen saves a ton of battery when it's on a dark theme, and it's bright enough that the text still stands out in bright light. I always run dark mode in any app I can regardless of the time of day, and instead vary the brightness slider for comfort. Luckily Android KitKat still had the Holo dark theme built throughout the OS, so it's only really the web browser and the email client I can't get running in dark mode (unfortunately the color inversion feature of the web browser doesn't work at all...)
Firefox has a nice dark mode in iOS. It doesn't have the same in Android?
I use the built in Android browser. My smartphone is ancient, it's a Samsung Epic 4G, so I try to avoid installing extra apps and use the most lightweight versions that I can. The stock browser is super lightweight since it's basically just a webframe window manager, and it comes with the OS, so no extra storage space needed. If Firefox can function well on 512MB of RAM, maybe I should give it a test, I've just not considered it yet since I didn't think it was capable running on such an old phone.
So do I, which is why I'd love all websites and apps to have a simple, always accessible
toggleswitch where I can just switch between dark and light at a whim, depending on the time of day and/or the brightness in my environment. If Tilde had a little light bulb button in some corner that allowed me to toggle between light and dark themes, without having to go into the settings, that'd be awesome!I really like light themes because it's more like reading a book. My perfect background/foreground is probably something like #ffe/#000.
One of the reasons I like Tildes is the dark theme. Not just a dark theme, Solarized! All my devices have it installed, and I'm using it everywhere it's available. I really love it.
I'd love it if Solarized dark was actually dark enough for me, because of how ubiquitous it is. Grateful that Tildes has an actual dark mode (i.e. black) for my poor eyes.
For me the ambient light/time of day makes a huge difference... if it's daytime, I prefer light themes, but at night light themes are way too harsh so I switch to dark themes (e.g. Baukula ;).
I'm not a fan of those red/blue shift programs like f.lux though, since colour accuracy is way too important to me.
I have tried dark themes and like them (Emacs' Misterioso is great but I needed to make some modifications to it; I don't like Solarized b/c way too low contrast, can't read anything with it; the Drakula theme of Tildes is fun; Gnome's dark mode is lovely), but I find I like light ones better, and they're better on my eyes in general (nothing objective, just how I feel). I have astigmatism (5 in one eye and 3 in the other, which is rather high), so that might be the reason why. But it hurts and waters my eyes.
But recently I found that I like the dark mode better when reading an ebook on my phone. This was the first time I read an ebook, and I tried a few apps (KOReader, Book Reader [FDroid]; Lithium [Google Play]), and Lithium was the most convenient for me. In all of them, the dark mode worked better for me. Especially under the sun, the text, white on black, remained mostly easily readable (I have a cheaper HTC), and more so than with white background.
Maybe it is because my eye is always jumping around when using a computer but when reading an ebook it is more focused b/c moving in a linear manner. IDK.
Try a Kindle or similar. Changed my book reading experience to where I was plowing through books for a few years. Very comfortable contrast and legibility.
What are some if those "similar" ones that you (and/or the rest of the community) recommend? I'd like something more open than Amazon's if available.
Kobo ereaders are a good alternative, and they are much more open than Kindles. To install third party software on the Kindle you have to jailbreak but on Kobo you can use the default update process.
True, but Calibre allows you full access to loading/unloading books to any Kindle without issue. You can even edit, format, organize into folders, etc. I was ready to find a more "open" e-reader until I stumbled across Calibre. Now, I keep everything organized on a USB stick using Calibre portable, and transfer back and forth as I read books. I make a
Books to Readfolder and aBooks Readfolder on the Kindle itself, so that I quickly know what to transfer into and out of. It really couldn't be much more "open," unless we're discussing fonts or using the reader as a browser or game machine, etc.Calibre works on Kobo too. And if you install koreader on Kobo you can use calibre's opds server or Calibre sync.
Open means it easy to install third party software and modifications.
Ah, I didn't know you could install it on the device. Only ever had a Kindle, and I hear people say it's not "open" because you can't put DRM-free books on it (you can) or you can't customize the way your book listings look (you can), or you can only put Amazon books on it (I only own one), etc. I see your point.
If all you want to do is read sideloaded books, Kindles are fine. Although they don't natively support the de facto open standard for ebooks (epubs), nor do they support CBZ/CBR files (it isn't too difficult to convert using software like calibre though, so it's not really an issue for anyone willing to spend a few seconds converting). Still though, I recommend Kobo's instead of kindle since they don't actively prevent third party software, allow fonts, support a much wider range of file formats, and have comparable features and pricing.
I feel like sometimes I'm the only person who regularly alternates between light and dark themes every month or so for a refreshed look/new coat of paint.
Same here; I don't mind either light or dark themes in most circumstances. I set my display brightness relatively low, so white content at night isn't a blinding flash. I don't mind dark themes (I'm using it on macOS), but I don't go out of my way to enable it, either.
On mobile devices that you use throughout the day (and night), though: that's something I'd love a dark theme on. I think dark theme on phones needs to be set system-wide, or you'll blind yourself whenever switching from a dark app to a light one. That's the primary reason I don't use dark themes in iOS apps today (even when it's available.)
Personal anectode coming up sample size n=1:
My vision was steadily declining since my teen years but like the optomitrist predicted it stabilized somewhere around my early 20's. At that point my perscription had not changed for about 7 years hovering somewhere around 3.75. About 3 years ago I started using dark themes everywhere I could at work and at home, I coupled that with flu.x since there would be a lot of nights I'd spend on the computer and it seemed to strain my eyes and could keep me awake late into the night.
So a few months ago I head out to replace my 4 year old glasses that I've basically had the entire time of this transition. My perscription went from 3.75 to 3.25 with essentially no change whatsover in besides the transition to darker themes on my work computer for web browsing and applications that support it.
That being said work computer is always dark mode, home computer is mostly dark mode, cell phone is dark mode depending on lighting (usually set by either sunset/sunrise or ambient lighting sensor). With Apple's newly found interest for dark mode on iOS and more apps supporting it these days, I'm quite hopeful that dark mode will be a function everywhere natively.
For me and my eyes, light modes are literally blindingly bright, as in "need to close my eyes because they get so irritated" bright. Any kind of bright light irritates me, including sunlight. I had a similar "so bright I seriously cannot see" experience when I was last in Florida. The word for this is apparently photophobia (phobia here in the sense of hydrophobic, not phobia as in fear).
Dark modes are not just an aesthetic choice. They are an accessibility feature, and should be given the same priority that other accessibility features have.
I decided to look for some light themes to give them a go. There seem to be two camps --- bright white or based-on-solarized-light. Not a lot of options compared to the dark theme world.
In my ideal world the entire system (including apps) would have one theming standard that could be set to time so we could have a light theme during the day that is gradually adjusted or flipped at a certain time.
While not exactly what you're asking for, have you looked into a colour temperature program like f.lux or redshift? I personally hate them because they mess with colour accuracy, but lots of people swear by them.
yeah, I use flux or redshift on everything -- but theme-wise everything is set to dark themes. I had flux controlling my hue bulbs for a time, but it overrides everything, which is really annoying.
This weekend I'm going to spend an afternoon working on some light themes. Despite having white backgrounds for a lot of websites, its so jarring having it for my terminal and other apps.
If you're on Android, substratum is the closest thing to a theming standard. I've been using the Swift Black theme, and nearly all my apps now have a dark mode. Occasionally an app updates and crashes because of the theme, but it's simple enough to disable the theme and wait for a theme update (which usually comes out very quickly).
I used to use dark themes for everything up until glossy screens became the only screens you could have. Glare is waaaaay worse on glossy screens, so I just started using light themes to compensate.
Also the fact that I have to use websites that can't be dark (even with all the crazy browser extensions to help) inevitably means that I'll have my retinas seared for trying.
Good news! CSS Media Queries Level 5 supports
prefers-color-scheme, which allows the browser to hint to websites that a particular website should follow the user's OS color theme prefs.You can see this in action on my website, lukeify.com (the terminal window will darken) but as far as I'm aware, it is only reliable if you're using Safari, running macOS 10.14, with Dark Mode enabled.
rm: command not found:<
Well, that's a step in the right direction, but it'll need to get way more widespread to be useful. Here's hoping it takes off.
Dark all the way. Especially since websites like to have so much empty whitespace these days.
Always dark if its an option since its easier on my old man eyes.
Plus Ive worked in radar rooms and ECCs where its dark so I supposed Im just used to it.
I've started using dark themed only a few months ago, not sure why l haven't done this before.
The main issue is that not all programs or platforms have dark themes, and if they do, they often have very high contrast or weird colors that can't be adjusted.
Another minor issue is partial dark themes: Sure, you can use dark theme on Tildes but my iPhone will still be blisteringly white. Same for Notepad++ where the background changes but the borders stay the same(already switched over to a different program that does work full-dark, Visual Studio Code).
Personally l prefer low contrast gray on a non-black background like solarized dark on Tildes. High contrast just makes things harder to read, like an astigmatism effect that blurs characters.
I could also just lower screen brightness but then environmental light wins and l wouldn't be able to see anything.
One Chrome extension l've been using a lot is [[edit name in here, gimme a min or two]]. It has multiple different light and dark theme layouts, contrast and color temperature settings so you can fine tune website looks to your needs. It's nice because all themes are now the same color and contrast, which reduces reading fatigue even further.
I'm probably going to be doing a similar splitting up of light and color. Light color themes for everything on my work machine because I'm only going to be using it during times where it is light out (in theory, RIP living in the north where it is dark when I get and leave work in the winter) and dark themes on everything on my personal computer. For websites, I'll probably stick with the dark theme since I'm more likely to be using them after work hours than during work hours. Not sure how it is going to work out but there's only one way to find out
Dark themes all the way! Finding dead pixels pisses me off to no end. I use dark themes everywhere possible, including sites that don't support dark themes by default (I an extension called stylus to load dark themes via css).
At one point, many years ago, I used white themes. This was before I knew of dark themes. Once you go dark, you never go back.
In general I prefer dark themes, but I often find that they're not really to my preferences. Well-implemented darkness, like the official YouTube dark theme, is much more comfortable and easy for me to look at...but often they're not up to par. There's a lot more bad ones (looking at you, Twitter) which have decent default light theming so I default to that. I tend to care more about darkness outside of webpages (the browser itself, my file browser, terminal, etc.) than on them.
On Tildes, I use Solarized Light. I don't really care for any of the dark themes here.
Im very much in the dark or even black theme territory.
Use dark applications as much as possible + dark reader for Firefox + substratum for android.
I just find it easier on the eyes I guess
It depends on the dark theme. Tildes's dark theme is great, as is Firefox's. I'm currently my laptop with KDE and Breeze-Dark, which is a nice theme. I prefer them to be sort of grayish rather than jet-black, and not have large leaps in contrast. It doesn't have to be as far as zenburn or Nord, but it shouldn't be like the black themes Samsung and Microsoft have decided to include with their software. I like if the supplemental colors pop a bit, like dracula, or Arc, though.
Personally I still love dark themes for most things and definitely for my IDE. I'm typing this with Tildes in dark theme right now. There's something calming and comforting to my eyes with dark themes - less jarring. I can see how that might translate into drowsiness, though - if I'm ever feeling really sleepy while working on something I might try toggling to a light theme to see if it'll help snap me out of it.
I have no strong preference really. I never use my computer in the dark but there is a night mode thing that makes the screen yellow at night. My text editor has a dark theme but most of my apps are light themes. I have tildes set to the dark green theme less because I care about dark themes but because it gives the website a bit of character and sets it apart from everything else.
Standard white all the way. It's more contrasty than solarized light. It's important to set screen brightness correctly though, the white shouldn't be really glowing against the surroundings if possible when reading.
Dark mode is more prone to exposing slight imperfections of eye shape in many people: as letters of text act as light sources there, even small glow or smear will cast against the dark background and this is somewhat unpleasant to see.
I've started work on a color scheme I've been calling 'Mom Jeans' -- a low contrast light theme
This is where I'm at so far. I'm not sure what the best representation for a color scheme is.. and there's still a bit of work to be done, but its shaping up nicely.
Aesthetically I generally much prefer dark themes. Just joined Tildes and finding it has a Darcula theme made me instantly love it way more than Reddit. However, in bright environments a light theme is more practical and readable. I often think about how I'd love for every website and every application to have a single simple
toggle light/darkbutton in some corner where you can toggle between two equally beautiful themes, one light, one dark. I'd use the light during the day and switch to dark at dusk.