Just realized dark mode needs more than just black backgrounds

I spent last week building a dark theme for a small blog and went straight for #000000 like everyone says. But when I actually viewed it on my phone screen at night, the contrast was so harsh it hurt my eyes. A designer friend pointed me toward using dark grays like #121212 instead and adding subtle color accents for depth. Now I get why people talk about color temperature in dark mode - it's not just about flipping a switch.

2 comments

2 Comments

ray2106d ago

Oh geez, yeah the #000000 trap is so real I almost want to make a t-shirt about it. I remember doing the exact same thing on my personal site and wondering why I felt like I was staring into a black hole while reading text that looked like it was floating. My buddy who does UI stuff laughed at me and said "congrats you just built the worst possible reading experience" which was brutal but fair. Now I just use something like #1e1e1e and suddenly my eyes don't feel like they're being stabbed after ten minutes. Also throw in some subtle blue or purple accents and it actually looks decent instead of looking like a cheap terminal emulator from 1993. It's wild how something so simple makes such a huge difference but hey at least we're learning the hard way I guess.

avery7215d ago

Wait, how long did it take you to figure out your text was floating? I was like three weeks in before someone told me.