PSA: Stopped using dark mode on my truck's GPS after it hid critical alerts.

The contrast was so poor that I missed exit warnings a couple times. Switching back to light mode made everything pop, even if it's harder on my eyes at night.

3 comments

3 Comments

the_john2d ago

Dark mode's only as good as the app that uses it. Some just do a lazy inversion that wrecks readability. Gotta test it per device.

rowan_anderson2d ago

Ugh exactly this. @the_john hit the nail on the head. It's not just a color swap, it's about actual contrast and not burning your eyes. That lazy gray-on-gray so many apps use is worse than bright mode. They don't test it on different screens so what looks fine on one phone is a blurry mess on another. A good dark mode is a real feature, a bad one is just a checkbox.

jennifere182d ago

Man, my friend Sam was trying to use a recipe app in bed with dark mode on. The text was this awful light gray on a slightly darker gray background. She was practically holding her phone two inches from her face, squinting at the screen. She finally gave up and turned her bedside lamp on, which totally wrecked her plan to not wake her husband. It’s crazy how a feature meant to help just makes things harder when it’s done poorly.