Hot take: pure black backgrounds are the worst thing to happen to dark mode

I used to be all about #000000 for dark themes, threw it on every project. Then a coworker at my last job in Pittsburgh ran an eye tracking test on our app with 40 users. People were literally squinting and losing their place on pure black. We switched to a dark gray like #121212 and the difference was immediate. Complaints about eye strain dropped almost overnight. I get the appeal of true black for OLED battery life, but if you are designing for real people reading text, give the gray a shot. Has anyone else moved away from #000 after testing it?

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taylor_barnes5920h agoMost Upvoted

Wait, 40 users and you're ready to rewrite the whole design system? That's a tiny sample size. I bet half those people were just tired from staring at a screen all day, not because of the hex code. And honestly, the "squinting" thing sounds like a stretch, people squint for a ton of reasons, glare, bad lighting, needing glasses. Plus, on a decent monitor, #000 vs #111 is barely noticeable unless you're holding them side by side. You're acting like a slightly less dark gray is some kind of miracle cure for humanity. Yeah, I get the theory, but this feels like a solution looking for a problem.