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Key Summary
This article from InApps Technology, authored by Phu Nguyen, explores the growing adoption of Dark UI (Dark Mode) in mobile and web applications, detailing its benefits for user experience, energy efficiency, and aesthetics. It explains why dark mode is particularly effective for certain apps and screens, and when it should be avoided. Key points include:
- What is Dark UI?:
- A low-light UI with dark gray surfaces, toggleable via an icon, designed to maintain usability while emitting less light.
- Uses dark gray (not pure black) to reduce contrast with light text, easing eye strain compared to black backgrounds.
- Advantages of Dark UI:
- Eye Strain Reduction: Minimizes discomfort during nighttime or low-light use, making it less painful than standard bright views.
- Focus Enhancement: Eliminates distracting white spaces on webpages, improving user focus.
- Aesthetic Appeal: Offers a sleek, customizable look preferred by users.
- Energy Efficiency:
- Screen Dependency: Dark mode saves significant power on OLED and AMOLED screens (e.g., 63% on iPhone XS) but has minimal impact on LCD screens (e.g., Samsung Galaxy S9).
- Example: Google Pixel at max brightness consumes six times more power in light mode than dark mode on OLED/AMOLED screens.
- Trend: Tech companies are shifting to OLED/AMOLED displays to leverage dark mode’s energy-saving benefits.
- LCD Screens: Dark mode still reduces blue light via filters, easing late-night browsing discomfort.
- Color Perception and Aesthetics:
- Night Filters vs. Dark Mode: Night filters (on iOS/Android) may cause discoloration or distortion, while dark mode uses muted colors to limit distortion, ease eye strain, and save energy.
- Visual Appeal: Enhances visibility of vibrant content (e.g., movie posters) through high contrast, as seen in apps like Reddit, which adjusts brightness for better readability.
- Who Uses Dark Mode?:
- Best Fit: Entertainment apps (Netflix, Spotify, YouTube, Smart TVs) where users view media from 6-12 feet in dim or dark settings.
- Ideal Use Case: Apps/websites with minimal text and visual-heavy content (e.g., teasers, ads, posters) using high-contrast colors like white for text.
- Example: Spotify uses dark mode for user comfort and aesthetic appeal.
- Who Should Avoid Dark Mode?:
- Not Suitable: Content-heavy apps with extensive text or data, as dark backgrounds reduce color options and challenge readability/usability.
- Design Challenge: Maintaining sufficient contrast for text-heavy interfaces impacts UX negatively.
- Conclusion:
- Dark mode is increasingly coded into apps and websites for nighttime usability, energy savings (on OLED/AMOLED), and visual appeal in low-light media viewing.
- While white backgrounds remain the default, dark mode is a valuable feature for specific use cases, with UI/UX developers ensuring pixel-perfect designs.
- InApps Insight:
- InApps Technology integrates dark mode into mobile and web apps using React Native and ReactJS, leveraging Microsoft’s Power Platform and Azure, with Power Fx for low-code UI development and Azure Durable Functions for scalable workflows.
- Combines Node.js, Vue.js, GraphQL APIs (e.g., Apollo), and Azure to deliver user-centric, energy-efficient applications, targeting startups and enterprises with Millennial-driven expectations.
Read more about Reasons why apps are using this mode – at Wikipedia
You can find content about Reasons why apps are using this mode – from the Wikipedia website
The dark UI feature that you have witnessed recently in Android and iOS apps is something that seems attractive and eye-friendly. It is a good thing. It is sleek and customizable.
A large number of studies shed some light on the benefits of a dark background. Let us further read about Dark UI.
What is Dark UI?
A dark theme is a low-light UI that displays mostly dark surfaces. They emit low levels of light while maintaining a high standard of usability. A dark theme turns on or off with the help of an icon toggle. A dark UI utilizes dark gray as the primary surface color for components. They reduce eye strain, as light text on a dark gray surface has less contrast than light text on a black surface.
Advantage of using Dark UI
The dark UI feature was included in apps initially to reduce eye strain. Dark background also eliminates distracting white spaces on some webpages, thereby enhancing focus.
However, there is a little bit of discomfort in the eyes if you use this at night. This discomfort is one of the reasons why dark mode has a health benefit. The dark mode is less painful than the standard views, even during daylight hours.
Does black background really save energy?
If you use Google Pixel at the highest light setting, it consumes six times the amount of power as in the highest dark setting. Hence, the dark background consumes very less power.
But you should know this, energy conservation depends on the type of screen the smartphone has.
What I mean is, dark mode is best optimized in OLED and AMOLED screens. According to Google, the dark mode does not have much of an impact on LCD screens (like in Samsung Galaxy S9). But in the case of AMOLED screens (like in iPhone XS), the dark mode saved approximately 63% power.
Therefore, tech companies are shifting away from LCD models and focusing on those displays which save energy while on dark mode.
When it comes to computer monitors and laptop screens, you can still activate the dark mode somewhat effectively on LCDs because of the filter it places over the blue light which the backlight on your monitor emits. Late-night browsing should give you less of a headache.
You will experience the full potential of dark UI effectively only on OLED and AMOLED screens.
Does black background change the way you perceive colors?
As a beginner, you should know that the night filters available on iOS and Android just cause an illusion of reducing eye strain. Discoloration and distortion may occur while using night filters.
On the other hand, the dark mode is aware of aesthetics (like sleekness). The dark background has three purposes:
- Limiting image distortion
- Easing eye strain
- Saving energy
This mode uses more muted colors that are easier on the eyes and require less power to display. Take an instance. Reddit manually lowered its brightness to improve visibility via contrast.
Who uses this mode?
Most of the entertainment apps (Netflix, Spotify, YouTube, Smart TVs) support dark-themed UI. It makes sense, too. You view media from a distance of 6-12 feet. For that viewing angle, this setup is the most appropriate. We use these apps on our television, laptops, and mobiles either in dim light or in the dark. Also, colorful content such as movie posters looks mesmerizing with dark mode.
Hence, the black background is well fitted for entertainment apps.
For a better UX, use this mode only in websites and apps where there is minimal text or compressed information. The emphasis should be on visual stuff, like teasers, ads, vivid posters, etc.
If you’re interested in using text, use a color with high contrast, preferably white or any other strong color (but no grey shade).
Who does not use dark mode?
Do not use dark mode in content where there are heavy text and data. The consensus in the design community is that black backgrounds are a huge challenge to design for unless you are dealing with simple content and just a sprinkling of text here and there.
One has to maintain sufficient contrast, which impacts the overarching challenge, readability, which is connected to usability, which impacts UX. All colors work on a white background, whereas on a black background the reduction of useful colors occurs.
Conclusion
UI and UX developers design the dark mode, and take every pixel into account and make sure you don’t lose anything by surfing in the dark. Still, white is the default background. Consequently, more and more websites and apps are getting coded for dark mode.
No matter what, dark UI is very useful when it comes to using a smartphone in the night, view media in a dimly lit environment, and saving energy.
Read more: Ways to Speed-up Your Mobile Application Development
Source: InApps.net
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