Talk:Light-on-dark color scheme

For a November 2004 deletion debate over this page see Wikipedia:Votes for deletion/White-on-black color scheme

Evidence?

Can we have some evidence for this please? Cites? The Anome

At various times I have heard "black on white", "white on black", "dark blue on light blue", "orange on black" and "pale yellow on dark blue" all advocated by some study or another to be the "best" colour scheme. I take all this with a pinch of salt -- Chris Q 11:38 Mar 5, 2003 (UTC)

I don't think anyone seriously would advocate text on a light background being best, except for WYSIWYG applications. Kim Bruning 20:59, 27 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Black-on-white will close the iris, resulting in a longer depth of field and less eyestrain due to changing focus. 70.225.161.132 (talk) 03:54, 12 April 2011 (UTC)

Why would you claim that a closed iris would result in less focus-change? Light strains the eyes. More light = more strain. Black on a white background = more light = more strain. This seems downright obvious to me... but then I also have to wear sunglasses to work because the fluorescent lighting is absolute hell on my retinas. I would well imagine that it relates directly to preferred background light-levels (and obviously my preference is a dark room). ~ SotiCoto (talk) 16:03, 17 November 2015 (UTC)

Black text on a plain background elicited reliably faster reading performance than on a medium-textured background. When compared to reading light text on a dark background, people read black text on a white background up to thirty-two percent faster. In general, the greater the contrast between the text and background, the easier the text is to read.

-- Research-Based Web Design & Usability Guidelines, 2006 (chapter 11, page 2; http://usability.gov/pdfs/chapter11.pdf ) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Myfonj (talk • contribs) 00:42, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

Merge with Dark-on-light color scheme

How should we merge these - perhaps to high-contrast color scheme? But that would be more suggestive of an OS-wide high contrast theme... any suggestions? « Aaron Rotenberg « Talk « 05:10, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

Light-on-dark isn't necessarily the same as High Contrast. For instance, I have my work computer set to light-grey on medium-grey. The text is lighter than the background, but the contrast is comparatively low. ~ SotiCoto (talk) 16:06, 17 November 2015 (UTC)

White-on-* printing

How the printing by (white) gaps in some printing plate (say, black) is named? In Russian it is ru:Выворотка. Because White-on-black (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs) redirects here, an appropriate link should be added under a {{redirect}}, if someone can remember this term. Incnis Mrsi (talk) 09:16, 19 September 2012 (UTC)

I sent the Russian wikipage to my Bulgarian friend who knows Russian partially and he sent me back this page Reversing type. Rudyon (talk) 13:54, 8 August 2022 (UTC)

Reference incorrect?

I don't know if things have changed (it's quite an old article) but a LCD works differently to a CRT and should consume more power drawing black than white. I looked up some alternative articles on Tom's Hardware and such and they agree. I suspect the figures in the article were made up, or whoever edited the article presumed they had been mixed up.

Citations: http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/lcd-backlight-led-cfl,2683-6.html http://darrenyates.com.au/2009/09/black-white-power-consumption-24-more-lcd-monitors-tested/1219 — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2.30.230.69 (talk) 16:39, 17 December 2012 (UTC)

Web issue

Having worked for a while with a computer set to show white text on black on webpages, the biggest issue is that many attributes are set wrongly by people assuming a white background, resulting too often in illegible pages or elements of black on black. 86.10.62.169 (talk) 23:11, 12 July 2016 (UTC)

Users apply using Stylish.

This sentence, currently in the article, sounds like either a cheap plug or marketing wank from a snake oil salesman:

"Users who prefer certain color schemes frequently apply their preference to web pages using tools such as Stylish."

It also doesn't read very well.--Awhit003 (talk) 16:10, 13 July 2018 (UTC)

Second paragraph of "Issues with the web"

Am I missing something, or is the second paragraph off-topic? The article is about light-on-dark color schemes, while the second paragraph of this section seems to be about general practice of color in web design and trails off with something about designers not using mechanisms that the architect provides (which doesn't have any citation confirming this).2A01:388:2F9:115:0:0:1:3 (talk) 15:01, 29 January 2019 (UTC)

It does seem to be offtopic. Should it be removed? Rudyon (talk) 09:10, 26 October 2021 (UTC)

I removed the paragraph. —Dexxor (talk) 05:58, 27 October 2021 (UTC)

History

It would be nice if the article had some history of dark mode. Everything on a computer terminal that I saw was dark mode until the Macintosh in 1984. Then Windows went the way of the Macintosh. And now dark mode is regaining popularity. But I don't have any source for this. Bubba73 ^{You talkin' to me?} 23:23, 15 February 2019 (UTC)

I have tried to bring to attention FORA.tv by adding a paragraph in the History section, however, I was asked by @Nardog to submit it in this forum, as I can't personally add that information myself. Please see my notes below for your consideration.

FORA.tv was first to use a dark-on-light color scheme and is the precursor to the Dark Mode that is in use today. FORA.tv dissolved as a company in 2018.

It is part of the history of the light-on-dark color scheme as the website was designed by me in 2009, Apple released Mojave in 2018. Please also refer to Responsive Web Design as an example, where Audi.com was the first to demonstrate a responsive website.

This is the paragraph I have written to be included in the History section:

In 2009, FORA.tv, a San Francisco-based on-demand video start-up, launched a re-designed version of their website with a light-on-dark color scheme as a way to simulate an indoor auditorium and lecture hall experience of prestigious institutions; which was an update from an earlier version of the website with a dark-on-light color scheme which could cause eyestrain while viewing intellectual hour-long videos.[1] It was also a way to differentiate it from TED.com, which was a dark-on-light color scheme website.[2]

[1] https://content.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,1918031_1918016_1917931,00.html

[2] https://www.fastcompany.com/1550880/face-ted-talks-vs-foratv

Hope that you can take FORA.tv into consideration for inclusion in the History section, it was quite possibly the most visible of the light-on-dark color scheme websites in 2009 (see References section in FORA.tv), however, the claim is not to be the first but to be mentioned in the history that led the the Dark Mode. I too am looking forward to knowing more about the other sites that did it before or after FORA.tv. Ditheringsurface (talk) 19:33, 1 April 2023 (UTC)

History Section Criteria

Could we get some consensus on what type of information should be added to the history section?

Currently, the history section is just a list of WP:RECENT dark mode releases, completely out of WP:PROPORTION. Also, as a reminder to what wikipedia is not, articles should not be an indiscriminate collection of information or WP:RELEASENOTES. To be honest, I'm not sure that all of the releases listed are important to the "history of light-on-dark color schemes" (which is what that section should be about).

Either way, I think if we do include dark mode releases, we need some sort of criteria so that we don't have every app and brand being added to the history section. - Whisperjanes (talk) 18:44, 10 March 2020 (UTC)

My suggestion to add only the sites/apps/etc. that have had a light as well as a dark version, to be considered for inclusion in the History section. Ditheringsurface (talk) 19:37, 1 April 2023 (UTC)

Less energy

> Light on dark color schemes require less energy to display on the most common display technologies

False. This is true for about zero desktop systems in the last 15 years.

> , including as OLED, CRT and LCD displays.

OLED sure. CRT sure. LCD no, as explained below in that section. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 198.91.180.20 (talk) 17:09, 29 April 2020 (UTC)

Enable dark mode on Wikipedia

How do I enable it — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.181.116.105 (talk) 10:09, 31 January 2021 (UTC)

• https://github.com/vitaly-zdanevich/wikipedia-userstyle-dark-minimum Vitaly Zdanevich (talk) 13:35, 31 January 2021 (UTC)
• Also: m:User:DavidL/DarkTheme -- ◄ David L • discuter ► 14:37, 13 March 2021 (UTC)
• Also, there is Dark Reader browser addon https://darkreader.org/ --Vulphere 08:43, 18 March 2021 (UTC)

It would be nice if wikipedia had a dark mode. Are there any plans for this? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.39.106.194 (talk) 21:51, 21 March 2021 (UTC)

It's in development. You can enable it from Preferances > Gadgets > Testing and development > Dark mode: Use a light text on dark background color scheme. Rudyon (talk) 09:16, 26 October 2021 (UTC)

Propaganda / bias

This article reads like an advertisement for dark mode. Sentences like this are a dead giveaway:

"Some users find dark mode displays more visually appealing, and they can reduce power consumption"

That's a messy sentence, but also it is set up to sound neutral when it is doing the opposite.

I was hoping to find an article giving facts on whether dark mode has become popular due to environmentalism or simple visual preference. Instead this is a strangely written brochure for how great dark mode is for whatever the reason.

It mentions the power saving benefits for an OLED monitor at least 4 times, giving vague positive numbers, but only half mentions the negative effects on an LCD, as though it wants to mention it as quickly as possible to avoid people accusing the article of bias. Crazytonyi (talk) 21:31, 20 October 2021 (UTC)

@Crazytonyi: "Some users find dark mode displays more visually appealing, and they can reduce power consumption." This sentence seems neutral to me. What would you replace it with? --The Tips of Apmh (talk) 20:43, 27 November 2021 (UTC)

NPOV Dispute

This page seems to have a Wikipedia:Neutral point of view now. Should the maintanence template be removed? Rudyon (talk) 09:23, 26 October 2021 (UTC)

@Rudyon and Crazytonyi:, the opinion expressed above does not appear to justify the use of the NPOV tag so I have removed it. The template documentation states: Use this template when you have identified a serious issue regarding WP:Neutral point of view. Calling it NPOV on the basis of one objectionable sentence is not a "serious issue". It goes on to state: The editor who adds the tag should discuss concerns on the talk page, pointing to specific issues that are actionable within the content policies. In the absence of such a discussion, or where it remains unclear what the NPOV violation is, the tag may be removed by any editor. As this is the case with the above objections, I have followed the advise. Thank you. Eggishorn (talk) (contrib) 17:04, 30 November 2021 (UTC)

Invented in 2018?

This article currently contains this: In early 2018, designer Sylvain Boyer extended the dark mode concept to the core interface of smartphones with OLED screens to save power consumption.[5][6]

This seems to imply that "the dark mode concept" was "extended" to smartphones in 2018, which is quite obviously incorrect to me (I personally wrote a dark CSS for Wikipedia around 2015 or 2016, and I have screenshots of smartphone apps with "dark mode" enabled from 2017). Is there a way to rephrase this? jp×g 00:59, 3 December 2021 (UTC)

That part of the article actually seems to be about a very specific aplication that was created in 2018. I don't think should even be included in the article. Thus I have removed the passage. Rudyon (talk) 14:00, 8 August 2022 (UTC)

Importance

It has become almost a standard these days that operating systems provide a dark mode theme for users accessibility in low light situations. In fact there are a plethora of references showing that a high majority of iOS and Android users have permanently switched their devices to dark mode. As a result, we should properly prioritize this page until the content has been updated.

Secondarily we should update the page name. I am suggesting that we switch the name from "Light-on-dark color scheme" to what is now known as "Screen Color Theme". Maybe it should be it's own issue. Thoughts? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Guylepage3 (talk • contribs) 15:04, 16 July 2023 (UTC)

why that, and not dark mode? cogsan • (give me attention) • (see my deeds) 11:31, 17 July 2023 (UTC)