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Rant: I keep seeing designers use pure black for dark mode backgrounds
Back when I was first learning UI design around 2015, everyone just turned the brightness down to black. Now I see it all over the place, especially in small startup apps. It creates too much contrast and makes text look like it's vibrating. I learned this the hard way on a project for a local news app where user tests showed people got eye strain. What's a good dark gray you all use instead of #000000?
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simon_chen1mo ago
Totally agree with this. It's like people forget that ALL black has a specific effect, it's not just a default "dark mode" button. @nathang67 is right, the slight gray tones make a WORLD of difference. I think it connects to a bigger pattern I see everywhere, not just in UI but in like apartment design and clothing too. Everyone goes straight for the EXTREME version of something without thinking about how it actually works in practice. Like someone painting their whole room matte black, then wondering why they feel depressed in it. The pure black background gives that same "no depth" feeling, everything feels flat and harsh. The real trick is embracing the subtlety of what's "dark enough" to be black but still has a tiny bit of warmth or softness to it.
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nathang671mo ago
Ugh, tell me about it. Honestly, I just use #111111 for almost everything now. It's dark enough but way easier on the eyes. I had to redo a whole dashboard because the pure black made the blue buttons look super harsh and weird. That slight gray tone just lets everything sit together better.
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