This article is from WeChat public account: 爱 范 儿 (ID: ifanr) , of: Li Chen, from the title FIG IC photo

When did an app-level feature like Dark Mode start to become system-level support?

What’s the use of Dark Mode? Before Dark Mode became popular, didn’t we also use it well?

The black background is the earliest “famous orthodoxy” of the computer

Actually, in the early days of computers, there was only a “dark mode” or dark interface for some time. In the 1960s and 1980s, the computing display device was a cathode ray tube (CRT) , but it could only support monochrome display. As we saw in The Matrix, the green text on a black background was the norm for monochrome displays at the time.

Monochrome CRT monitor

Color CRT monitors have only gradually become popular and popular since the 1980s. By the 1990s, when primary school computer classes were held, you could see that the color CRT monitors were already a single color. However, the first DOS that many people came into contact with, because of the lack of a graphical interface, continued the tradition of the previous black background.

Basically, before the popularity of graphical interfaces, green text on a black background or white text on a black background was a daily habit of the computer industry.

Picture from: Mac History

Later, the Mac changed the black background display in the industry in the new graphical interface brought in 1984. Instead, it used a white background as the background color of the graphical interactive interface. This may be the most important design change of the computer. One, and it has had a profound impact since.

As for why you decided to use a white background, only Apple may know (maybe Xerox also knows) . Some have speculated to simulate the effect of paper, just like the prints that have appeared in our lives for thousands of years.

But to this day, many developers are still accustomed to using dark backgrounds when writing code.Later, different codes are distinguished by different colors. This is because the contrast of the dark background is higher. This “coloring syntax” allows most codes to be quickly and clearly identified. It’s like black models always look better than your seller show when they wear colorful clothes.

Picture from: salesforce.com

In 2018, the designer of customer relationship management (CRM) software service provider Salesforce wanted to know when to develop dashboard features Which model would be best. So they interviewed many users, and it turned out that users would react faster and more accurately to charts under dark themes.

This has also been verified on stock trading software. At present, the vast majority of stock software in the world uses negative polarity, which is the design method of dark background. The rise and fall represented by red and green (colors may vary from country to country) , it will be particularly conspicuous in such a dark background. And some colors, such as blueChart of some data.

Picture from: iMore

The interface of the Apple Apple Watch is also a classic case, especially in the Activity app. The fitness goal is composed of three different bright colors to form a nested ring shape, which can be easily seen against a deep black background. The progress of each item.

As users’ voices for dark mode become higher and higher, Apple has added a dark theme in iOS 13, and Google has added the same feature to Andorid 10.

Dark mode will be more eye-protecting, is that really the case?

After long accustomed to the bright graphical interface, the re-emergence of the dark mode is like walking out of the room for two days to get the first breath of fresh air. And the parts that users can customize are also more diverse. For those who like freshness, this is definitely a good thing.

Picture from: Cultura Colectiva

But some people claim that the dark mode can better protect the eyes and reduce eye fatigue. If you use dark mode based on this consideration, I think this may not be necessary.

In fact, the human eye is not designed for a low-light environment. During millions of years of evolution, the environment around humans is usually bright, active during the day, and sleeping peacefully at night. The human eye needs to focus on the objects in front of the background environment, whether it be food, tools, predators or something else. So humans are gradually getting used to operating on darker objects against a bright background.

This preference is likely to have been engraved in our DNA and tended towards infancy. According to Danny Miller (Dannemiller) and Stephens (Stephens) in 1988 showed that three-month-old babies would be attracted to the former when they saw both the light background and the dark background.

So, is there any relevant research and scientific basis for dark mode eye protection?

Picture from: 撸 linux

A large number of studies have proven that there is no direct relationship between dark mode and eye protection. Even the design of white text on a black background is not good for reading.

Susan Mayer of the University of Passau is a researcher focused on human-computer interaction. She has published six studies on the impact of web text design on cognition. Participants in the study were asked to read the positive polarity (black text on white background) or negative polarity (white text on black background) Text.

The test participants then perform basic proofreading tasks, such as finding spelling or grammatical errors. Researchers also measured the reading speed of participants in each mode.

The result is that all participants perform better under positive conditions, they detect more errors and read faster.

Picture from: Medical Xpress

A biological study may explain this answer, because it may be related to my human eye’s response to light.

When the light is bright, (such as a white background) , the pupils of the human eye will shrink; when the light is dim, (such as a black background) , the pupils of the human eye will dilate. At this point, the white text on the black background will look a bit fuzzy, and the edges of the font will swell like a halo.

Myer said: “The dilation of the pupil leads to optical blur, and the contraction of the pupil leads to better image quality on the retina, so that small details can be better perceived.” “According to this explanation, when the text font is very small, The advantage of positive polarity is particularly great. “For example, when facing small text on mobile phones.

As early as 2003, Taiwan’s Daye University reached similar conclusions in similar tests. There is growing evidence that Dark Mode does not significantly help protect your eyes.

But for individuals, different individuals will still show different degrees of preference for the dark mode. If you think you can reduce eye fatigue in the dark mode, it doesn’t matter if you use it.

What’s the use of dark mode if it’s not eye protection?

Are there other uses for Dark Mode?

If you ask Apple, they will tell you “This is a dramatic new look that helps you focus on your work and create a distraction-free environment.” Well, Apple has always been lyrical copywriting.

Compared to Apple ’s lyrical approach from a human perspective, Google ’s claims are obviously much more pragmatic. They write in the dark theme development guidelines of the Android developer website about the three advantages of dark themes: < / p>

  • Significantly reduce power consumption


  • Better visibility for users with low vision and users sensitive to bright light


  • Enable anyone to use their smart hands in low lightMachine

    Power saving is ranked first by Google. If you search on social networking sites such as Weibo, you can find that there are many users who use dark themes or dark modes to save power, especially some mid-to-high-end Mobile phone with OLED screen. To some extent, the biggest contradiction in smartphones is the game between performance and battery.

    The power saving effect of the dark mode comes from the characteristics of the OLED material. After years of development, this screen has replaced LCD’s position in mid-to-high-end mobile phones. Unlike LCDs, which rely on backlighting, the self-luminous nature of OLEDs allows the screen to independently control whether a single pixel emits light, which means that the darker the screen, the more power-efficient a mobile phone using an OLED screen.

    How much power does Dark Mode save? Technology Media PhoneBuff tested the iPhone XS with a robotic arm last year. The two iPhone XS settings are exactly the same, one in light mode and the other in dark mode.

    Why reduce the variables, the two iPhone XS set the brightness to the same 200 nits, and both use robotic arms to perform the same operations, including the daily behavior of users such as texting, browsing the web, watching videos, using Google Maps, etc. To get as close to the real simulation as possible.

    Experimentally found that the dark mode isBattery life with OLED screens helps a lot, at least on these two iPhone XS. When the iPhone XS in light mode runs out after 7 hours and 33 minutes, the dark mode has 30% of battery left.

    Official Google has also stated that when using dark themes for navigation, the power consumption of OLED screens can be reduced by up to 63%.

    What should a good dark mode look like?

    Although dark mode has no scientific eye protection effect, considering the other effective benefits and giving users more options, the extensive support of dark mode is still necessary.

    But the question is how to design a better dark mode, instead of crudely reversed colors or simply using a pure black background.

    At this point, Google gave a pretty good answer in Material Design’s design guidelines. It can be roughly divided into these principles:

    • Do not use 100% black

    • Use differentHierarchical black and shadows to reflect the layering

    • Change the original color in dark mode

    • Create a new, dark mode palette

    • Use colors sparingly to avoid whimsical

    • Ensure sufficient contrast

      Finally, I hope you enjoy using it in apps that support Dark Mode.

      This article is from WeChat public account: 爱 范 儿 (ID: ifanr) , author: Li Chen