The dark mode system uses the black color theme for all the screens, views, menus, and controls that also supports all the mobile features. The update gives full flexibility to the users who can launch this update on their mobile apps as their default interface style. The update has influenced many mobile manufacturing companies including Apple who have promised to replace all the LCD screens with the OLED screens by the year 2020. From mobile app developers to mobile users, everybody seems to launch the dark mode on their mobile devices and see what their operating systems look like.
How Dark Mode proves to be beneficial for the users?
The main aim of the dark mode is to improve user-interface with better visibility and other advantages that are mentioned below –
- Reduces eye strain – Generally, mobile phones are equipped with a bright white light that uses high-energy colors which stress the eyes and affects the vision especially at night. However, the dark mode is designed with the purpose of reducing eye strain in low-light conditions and giving users peace of mind. Therefore, dark themes are a good option for people with sensitive eyes.
- Battery saver – The energy used by the bright white light is comparatively high than the newly added update of dark mode which not only hampers the efficiency of one’s eyes but also reduces battery life. Whereas, dark mode reduces the usage of power to a certain extent depending on the screen technology of the mobile device. Even Google has also confirmed that using dark mode on OLED screens is a great boon for increasing the life expectancy of mobile’s battery.
- Improves readability – In terms of readability, white light is always unhealthy for the longevity of the vision of the eyes. However, dark mode or dark themes focus on the content by ensuring the comfortable readability to the users. Having a dark background and light text will not only increases the contrast between the text and background but also eliminates the stress of transparency.
- Improves sleeping pattern – Being exposed to extreme white light affects the nervous system that in turn affects the sleeping pattern of a person. There is a hormone called melatonin which if gets increased can encourage the risk of sleeping problems, obesity, and even life-threatening diseases such as cancer. However, dark mode reduces the tensions that occur due to high light resolution and poor readability hence results in improving the sleeping cycle of a person.
- Better outlook – Everybody knows that black is a classic color that can’t be replaced with any other color. While comparing black color with white, black seems to be the perfect color while demonstrating graphs, pictures, dashboards, and so on. The visibility of color better appears on dark backgrounds and hence users won’t find any difficulty while reading the content. Also, it a great source for people who love exploring with organizations of charts and reports in different colors.
- Generates focus – The focus depends on the amount of stress consumed by our eyes and the quality of readability that we are offered with. Lighter backgrounds demand more attention to read that not only stresses the mind and but also hampers the focus and concentration of the person reading on the phone. However, replacing the white bright mode with dark mode will allow comfortable readability to the users who can experience a better focus without being distracted.
When to avoid dark mode?
Being an effective update there are certain things about the dark mode that one should avoid in some conditions.
- There is no doubt that dark mode reduces the eye strain but when there is too much exposure of sunlight the dark mode can make the readability difficult. Therefore, one should avoid implementing dark mode while they are in high light conditions.
- The dark mode offers 100% contrast while reading light-colored text (in white) on a dark background (on black) which sometimes becomes difficult to read and causes more eye strain.
What are the tips to be followed by mobile app designers for creating effective dark theme designs for mobile apps?
- Do not consider the pure black colored theme – The whole black screen will create 100% high contrast which will increase the eye strain and affects the readability of a person. However, selecting some dark primary colors such as grey and blue will be a great alternative in increasing the visibility of the text without compromising on the health of the eyes.
- Avoid the usage of saturated or pure colors on the dark themes – Using extremely saturated colors will create a contrast between the dark background, thus creating complications while reading text. However, neutral or light colors are easily readable and that’s why they are highly recommended for maintaining a good vision.
Now that you are aware of the mechanisms of the dark mode it is great to replace the bright white mode with the dark one that claims to emit a low level of light while maintaining a high standard of readability and visibility of text on the mobile screen.