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Finally caved on contrast testing tools after ignoring them for 3 years
I always thought contrast checkers were overkill until I loaded my dark mode design into one and saw half my text was failing WCAG. How do you balance moody dark themes with readability without making everything look washed out?
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ray2102mo ago
Dark mode is a trap honestly. People think "darker = better" but your eyes still need enough contrast to actually read text without straining. I work in this field and I've seen designers sacrifice readability for aesthetics way too often. You don't have to make everything washed out though. Just bump up your text colors a bit. Instead of pure white try something in the high 80s or low 90s for luminance. That blueish gray tone still reads as light but passes contrast checks with dark backgrounds. And don't forget your non-text elements like icons and borders they have lower contrast requirements so you can keep those more muted.
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king.dakota1mo ago
Just ditch pure white text entirely and go for a warm tinted gray instead.
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