[apk-d]

Does anyone actually prefer reading text on a bright background? If so, what are your reasons? For me, the choice is obvious to the point that I'm often annoyed at the lengths I need to go to in order to browse the web comfortably. I feel like we should have moved to the sane default of dark-themed UI ages ago.

[skymt]

Honest question: how well-lit is the area you use your computer in, and have you tried turning down your monitor's brightness? I'm as baffled by the popularity of dark themes as you are with light themes, but I'm sitting in a fairly bright room with natural light and a monitor at 35% brightness. In these conditions dark-on-light and light-on-dark text are equally pleasant to read, and I opt for light themes when given the choice simply for consistency. If you're using dark themes because you browse the web in the dark, it seems to me like changing your conditions is a better solution for your eye health.

[kitsunesoba]

It really bugs me for my monitor to not be at or near max brightness because of how terrible the colors look at low brightness, even on high end IPS panels. This isn’t an issue on my OLED phone, which has great colors even at the lowest brightness, but nobody makes 27” OLED monitors and if they did they’d be prohibitively expensive.

[tadfisher]

Are you speaking subjectively, or are you saying reducing the backlight level is affecting the color reproduction of your IPS display?

I've found that while I may need to recalibrate with my Spyder, color accuracy is essentially unchanged at 50% brightness.

[TimTheTinker]

Display brightness establishes the absolute limits of its output color space (i.e. the display's dynamic range).

By which I mean: bright colors won't be anywhere as bright with a dim display as they would be when the brightness is turned up. And the difference between dark and light colors is more pronounced with a higher brightness level.

[brobdingnagians]

I use Redshift continuously day & night and at first it looked really weird with the red tint, but after awhile my brain got used to it and now I don't notice at all (and it is a lot more comfortable), looking at other peoples' screens looks blindingly bright; makes me feel like a vampire...

[dzhiurgis]

Man I would pay a lot for 15-17" MacBook (or properly supported Linux machine) with proper OLED screen (from what I read the already discontinued Lenovo's suck at direct sun).

[BurritoAlPastor]

As I understand it, OLED burn-in is a _mitigated_ problem but not a _solved_ problem, and I wouldn't expect to see OLED monitors so long as that state of affair continues.

[dzhiurgis]

We got phones adopting OLED for a while now. Their expected lifetime is getting close to laptops...

Also burn-in might not be such a big deal for developers (a category that Apple more or less ignores).

[exodust]

> have you tried turning down your monitor's brightness?

Not all content is too bright and white. Videos for example playing at full screen, I would not want reduced brightness for. It's the bright 100% white background of websites on a large monitor that is not comfortable.

Also most monitors have annoying UX for adjusting brightness, requiring two presses of tiny unmarked buttons to get to menu then change brightness.

I was very pleased when Youtube added their nightmode feature, which I leave on always.

[rlv-dan]

Yes. I find it really difficult and uncomfortable to read bright text on dark backgrounds. It honestly hurts my eyes. And afterwards my eyes have leftover streaks of bright after the text lines. Can't stand it, and I will go to lengths to turns such pages into "bright mode".

[creep]

I have a thinkpad I rigged with slackware and a custom WM and whatnot, custom browser, etc. exclusively in dark colors with brighter text. But instead of white I opt for a lighter grey. If I need context highlighting I use variations of red, orange, and blue. It's the perfect setting for me since I also had that "retina burn" effect from white-on-black. On my windows machines I use a redshift app called Flux. Not great for watching videos since the colors are off, but for general browsing and working it's the only setting I can stand with light backgrounds.

[mikeleeorg]

Definitely seems to be a preference thing I guess. I'm like you, I find it more uncomfortable reading bright text on dark backgrounds that I often avoid sites that have that color scheme, if there is no "bright mode" available.

[deepspace]

Absolutely. I am old enough to remember working on monochrome monitors with green or yellow text on a black background, and the associated eyestrain was torture for me. It was a glorious day when I installed my first color monitor and was finally able to read black text on a white background.

[zubi]

I do. I cannot use dark themed text editors for a long time even though I fully understand and feel that over time it becomes tiring to the eye. I can't explain the reasons why I keep using the white background because I don't exactly know, but I think I find it a bit difficult to keep my focus on what I'm reading (or writing). Feels like I'm getting lost in the code that I'm editing, can find the relevant part as quickly as I can with a bright background. Maybe it has something to do with habit, which can change upon forcing myself, I don't know.

[tempguy9999]

Yes, and I understand there's a simple physiological reason for it. To focus, the eye needs to contract the pupil (which is why when people take off their glasses they squint at things. Another test if shortsighted: remove specs and look at a distant item such as a clock on a wall. It looks blurry. Take a sheet of paper, put a pin through it and then look again at the clock through the pinhole - it's a lot less fuzzy). With dark background, the eye tries to expand the pupil to let in more light, yet wants to contract to improve focus, so they fight. With light background, they don't fight.

This is sloppy but I believe correct. Any experts, feel free to correct or extend this, thanks.

When I stated using a mac, the bright background infuriated me, but when I went back to a dark background, I realised the mac was just nicer to use.

To the guy saying it's a strain to use black text on white, I believe some eye disorders make it easier to read white text on black. Another reason is the brightness of the monitor is just excessive - try turning it down.

HTH

[tpush]

I find dark modes depressing when I stare at them for too long.

Take the new macOS dark mode. Looked great when I first switched to it, but after a few hours I happily switched back to light mode.

I also only really read/code at day/in well-lit environments, so dark mode doesn't really do anything for me when it comes to eye strain etc.

[lkirk]

It really depends on how light it is outside. I like light backgrounds when it's light outside, but dark ones at night.

[marrone12]

Exactly. I feel like everyone who is dogmatic about dark themed everything never spends time near a window.

[ryanisnan]

People on the internet being dogmatic? Never!

[asdff]

White backgrounds have less glare with my monitors, and I'm not one to work without a lamp as I live off a legal pad. I haven't gotten eye strain in over a decade since I started using f.lux. I used to be really into night mode in high school, but that didn't really last as back then, extensions like this were clunky and screwed up websites (eg, not all black font would switch to white, or the implementation would just invert the colors on the page, including images).

There's an IT 'dungeon' at my workplace, and all of their screens are in a dark mode theme although the IT people there do not use any lights in that room besides the glow of their monitors, and maybe 10 feet of multicolored string lights in one of the corners so you aren't running into desks. They even have blackout curtains over the windows. The first time I walked into that room trying to find someone, I assumed it was empty, lights off, and everyone went home, but there were a dozen people in there working like that! I'd feel like I crawled out of a cave every time I left the room if I worked in that environment. Good lighting keeps me awake as well.

[jplayer01]

I actually switch depending on the lighting conditions around me. If I'm on the train on my laptop during the day, it's too bright to read text on a black background. Everything becomes way too difficult to read, so I set all my terminals/editors to white. Once I'm somewhere darker or it's later in the day, I'll switch everything back.

[climb_stealth]

I find it jarring to switch from a dark window to something bright, for example from vim to the web browser.

You basically said it yourself. It takes a lot of effort to make everything dark. Instead I make bright comfortable. Around 5% brightness on the external monitor and f.lux active all the time with a pleasant middle setting.

[mikeleeorg]

"make bright comfortable" <- Yes, this. f.lux has been great for my eyes too.

[nqzero]

i do

bright text on a dark background (at least on a display) triggers auras and nausea for me. the auras can vary a bit, but a typical one would be seeing an overlay of flickering, scrolling dark-colored horizontal bars for the next few minutes

i actually came to this thread to see if the extension supported "Light mode for everything" as an option :)

[foobarbecue]

I prefer a dark theme, but find black on white much better outdoors or in an overlit area. This is on a work laptop with a glossy screen (I'd prefer matte).

[jplayer01]

Matte screen here, white on black is unreadable outdoors.

[falcrist]

I prefer dark themes, but they become more difficult to read than light themes when there's glare. If there's a lot of ambient light, dark themes could even cause eyestrain.

You can turn up monitor brightness to compensate, but you could have turned down monitor brightness to compensate for the light theme anyway.

Also, if you're using a projector, dark modes tend to be noticably more difficult to read. I'm not sure why that is.

Honestly, though, I stick with Microsoft's dark mode 95% of the time.

[devereaux]

I do!

Because if the background is uniformly bright (white/whitish) I can use the accessibility options to invert the display and make everything dark :-)

I hate Windows 10 full black taskbar (must be #000000), because it breaks this. And even W10 lets you pick some colors in a theme, you can't go full white (#ffffff).

[JCharante]

I do, because the screens on my devices suffer from extreme amounts of glare if they're not as white/bright as I can get them to be, and I work in suboptimal lighting conditions.

[fosco]

dark mode makes me sleepy, having bright monitors and room helps me stay alert, so does standing which gets tiresome from doing it all day.

I work from home so there are less distractions and it helps me stay focused for this... but all in all I think this is 100% pure preference, I cannot work in dark lit rooms, when I am working at 3am (this is rare but happens) I have my hospital grade lighting (my wifes words) blasting at on :-)

in other news, I think its relevant for me to say my HN topcolor is ffffff :-)

[copperx]

I still remember when I went from using MS-DOS to Windows 3.1. The black background of MS-DOS was pleasing, whereas Windows was too bright on the eyes.

[paulddraper]

In dark environments, dark UIs are easy on the eyes.

In light environments, dark UIs get washed out and are illegible.

[rambojazz]

It depends on ambient light.