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by Aoyagi 2997 days ago
And yet so few of the designers consider dark/black colour themes, which are not only more easier on the eyes, but also notably save the battery.
3 comments

Dark themes are worse for the eyes, https://ux.stackexchange.com/questions/53264/dark-or-white-c...

Don't know about battery life. I guess if it's AMOLED, https://www.greenbot.com/article/2834583/how-much-power-does...

Maybe, but I wonder if that is true at night with the lights off. When I read in bed at night, I much prefer light on dark text. Combined with Android's night mode to tint things red, it is fantastic.

In fact, I wish the Kindle Paperwhite would come out with an inverted mode already (although I think I read there were some challenges with doing so). It can be fairly straining on my eyes to have the sidelit screen bright enough to be legible while being as dim as possible to make reading with the lights off comfortable.

Majority of reading is done in a brighter setting so many factors contribute to using dark text in white background. In the case of reading in the dark or low light settings, using a Kindle Paperwhite gets complicated since you want to make the background darker while still maintaining sufficient contrast to read the text which is always in a dark font color.

In the UX StackExchange post, it's stated that astigmatism is also a contributing factor to favor dark text on white background. I do believe that these night time settings should be toggled automatically for white text with dark background as well as accounting for blue wavelength reduction for screens with full colors.

I would like operating systems, browsers and websites to globally support a "night mode" where a dark background is used. Especially with the proliferation of mobile devices, people increasingly use technology in low-light environments. As it stands today, I have to add external stylesheets to websites to get this effect, and if I want to toggle them, I have to toggle each one manually. It's similar, but worse for Android apps because the app itself has to support themes.

I find having a significant portion of the screen white when my eyes are relatively dark-adapted uncomfortable, even when the brightness is set fairly low. I find a dark background with light text very preferable under those conditions. I do not care if there is research suggesting I should not have this preference.

From talking to others in person and online, I get the impression that my preference is very common. Android was supposed to get something resembling this, but the feature has been dropped or delayed.

>Dark themes are worse for the eyes

Well, certainly not for my eyes.

>Don't know about battery life. I guess if it's AMOLED

Yes, that's what I meant, as discussed in the thread below. I didn't realise of common LCD screens still are. I haven't had one since 2012...

Easier on the eyes surely, but I understood it that dark themes only save battery for OLED/AMOLED screens. For LCD/TN dark themes use slightly more. I am not an Electrical Engineer though.
Well yes, that's what I meant. I keep forgetting there are still mobile devices with LCD screens...
Which makes AMOLED still not old enough to enter the general consciousness of the designers. They're optimizing for the screens they (and everyone they know) are used to.
Well, there are plenty of Android devices with OLED screens, but this is what truly got me

>The iPhone X is the first iPhone to use an OLED display

Shocking, actually.

Up until very recently, OLED were great if you didn't care about color reproduction. My 2011 Nokia N9 had an OLED display. Then LCD made something of a comeback due to superior color fidelity. Currently OLEDs are getting good enough to perhaps finally replace LCDs for good, although there are some promising unorganic LED display technologies already around the corner...
Looking at older screen technologies, CRTs also use less power for dark screens.
I suspect not in a way that people care very much about compared to mobile device battery life.