Serious question, is pure black dark mode actually hurting your eyes?

I spent 6 months building two versions of my app's dark theme, one with #000000 and one with a dark gray like #121212. Tested them on 30 people in my design meetup group here in Austin. Almost everyone complained about eye strain and halos with pure black after reading for 20 minutes. The dark gray version got way better feedback, people said they could read for way longer without headaches. I think Material You and iOS are onto something by not going all the way to pure black. Has anyone else tested this with real users or am I overthinking it?

2 comments

2 Comments

elliot_harris2518d ago

Wait, isn't pure black just way too harsh on the eyes?

fiona_murray18d ago

Oh I totally get what you mean about "way too harsh on the eyes." Actually that reminds me of this time my friend insisted on painting her entire living room in matte black. She called it "sophisticated" but I called it a cave. We sat in there for five minutes and I felt like I was staring into a void. She ended up adding fairy lights everywhere just to make it livable. Now it looks like a goth Christmas tree exploded in there.