That UX director who told me to stop using dark mode mockups was right all along

Last month I had this big presentation for a client in Detroit. I spent like 3 days making all these sleek dark mode screens because I thought they looked way cooler. My old UX director from my last job, she saw a sneak peek and literally said "you're going to get roasted for accessibility". I brushed her off. Got to the meeting and the client's accessibility lead pulled out a contrast checker on his phone in front of everyone. My beautiful dark backgrounds failed on like 90 percent of the text combos. Had to redo the whole deck overnight. Has anyone else had that moment where you realize light mode isn't just boring corporate stuff, it's actually the safe bet?

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1 Comment

ivancoleman16h ago

Did you know that something like 1 in 12 men have some form of color blindness? I read that in a design blog a while back and it totally changed how I look at dark mode. There's a whole group of users who just can't read low-contrast text on dark backgrounds. Your boss was spot on about accessibility. Light mode with good contrast isn't boring, it's just making sure everyone can actually see what you're trying to show them.