My dark mode looked great until a client pulled it up on their monitor last Tuesday

I was in a coffee shop in downtown Austin showing a client my new dashboard design. I had spent 3 days getting the dark mode colors just right on my MacBook. Then they opened it on their cheap external monitor and everything looked washed out and muddy. The gray backgrounds blended together and the text lost all contrast. I went back and tested my design on 4 different screens at different brightness levels. Now I have a rule to always check dark mode on at least one older or lower quality display before sending it to a client. Has anyone else had a color shift surprise when switching screens?

2 comments

2 Comments

amy30216h ago

Oh man, that exact thing happened to me with a medical app I was building. I had these perfect deep navy blues and soft grays that looked slick on my retina display, then the client pulled it up on an old Dell monitor and the whole thing looked like someone smeared Vaseline on the screen. The worst part was the text on buttons - I had used a slightly lighter gray for the text thinking it would look elegant, but on their screen it basically disappeared. I ended up buying a cheap $60 monitor specifically for testing now. It sits right next to my nice one and honestly it's saved me from some embarrassing presentations.

terry_mitchell12h ago

Bought one of those $80 test monitors and it paid for itself after the first time it caught a contrast issue I missed. Now I check everything on that cheap screen before I show anyone.