We all typically spend a long time staring at screens during the day – whether at work or in our leisure time. Last year (2022) Vision Direct commissioned a research study involving 2,000 British adults which revealed that the respondents spend 4,866 hours a year staring at screens, whether they're phones, laptops, TVs, gaming devices or e-readers. That means the average adult spends an astonishing 34 years staring at screens!
We have all had instances when we’ve found our eyes are feeling particularly tired or our screen is so light, that we feel we should put on some sunglasses or perhaps turn the brightness down. There are other times when we realise that our bright screen could be disturbing others around us – or public transport for instance - or it’s late at night and our companion is asleep and we don’t want to wake them.
When websites first became popular, many of the sites were brightly coloured but, today, we there is an increasing proportion of websites built around dark mode or dark theme web design. These types of website can be easier on the eye – particularly in low ambient light settings. While some people might simply experience tired eyes, blue light exposure can lead to digital eye strain and the symptoms of that can include dry eye, pain, headaches or migraines, insomnia and visual disturbances.
It’s worth bearing in mind though how your choice of themes will affect your users – particularly partially sighted visitors. While dark theme can be easier to read, it’s important not to go from colour to greyscale. Following the death of Prince Philip, a number of companies – including National Rail - changed their websites from colour to greyscale.
As Robin Spinks, the innovation lead for the Royal National Institute of Blind People explained in The Guardian: “As someone who is registered severely sight impaired, good colour contrast on a website is incredibly important. A lack of this makes it difficult for me to read the content and causes headaches and eye strain. It leaves me feeling unwelcome as a customer.
It was interesting to see that when the Queen died a few months later, companies opted to simply turn their logos to black and white, rather than making the whole site greyscale.
Creating a dark mode website can look sophisticated; often it’s a theme chosen by high end designers and museums. As one commentator said, black is a colour associated with ‘elegance, style and power’. While they can look impressive, dark mode websites featuring a dark background can use less battery power on mobile phones – which is a box ticked for many people.
If you’ve got a light theme for your website, it is possible to make a dark version. Alternatively, if you are looking at creating a new website, you could make both dark and light theme versions – giving users the option to switch between the two.
As a consumer, you have the choice to simply change the settings on your device to a darker theme. The default on most devices is to show black text on a white background. Switching your device to dark mode means that it will display white text on a dark background. When applied, dark mode is set across the entire user interface, including within any theme aware apps you might use. Most operating systems will allow users to choose between light and dark themes directly in the system settings. Modern browsers can communicate the device theme preference to the website and allow websites to render dark themes automatically.
If you want to find out more about creating a dark mode version of your website, do get in touch on tel: 020 3397 3222.