The best dark mode toggle is probably none

a month ago by codeinabox to c/webdev

My post on two-state dark mode toggles sparked a lot of discussion about the optimal dark mode toggle design. But should you have a (persistent) dark mode toggle at all? I have since been convinced that for most websites, the answer is no.

Zak 6 points a month ago

When I loaded this page on my phone (Firefox on Android), the colors changed several times during loading, then the layout shifted so that only a third of the screen was used for text. That makes taking the author's thoughts on web design seriously difficult.

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jaredwhite 6 points a month ago

Yes. Toggles are unnecessary, a phenomenon of weird nerds. Just match the system settings and you're fine.

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FrogOnShark 8 points a month ago

Do you mean altogether unnecessary, or unnecessary as a persistent toggle on the main screen?

If you're talking about the former I'd disagree, easiest way to explain is with my own real-world example.

I put basically everything in dark mode, but our ticketing system's website I put in light mode (even though they have a dark mode) because their dark mode looks like shit.

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RougeEric 3 points a month ago

I think the better alternative would be for browsers to have some kind of per-site override instead of relying on every single site building the same system and putting the option in a different place.

If a setting is universally supported by all sites (which dark mode should be, along with the other common accessibility flags), it shouldn't be something that the site needs to control.

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FrogOnShark 2 points a month ago

It probably wasn't clear in my post but I'd be happy with the toggle being in the browser (not something I've historically thought about but a great idea), it was more about the existence of a toggle.

I do agree with @jaredwhite@humansare.social that having the toggle in the header is a waste of space. Same with horizontal tabs.

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jaredwhite 2 points a month ago

Maybe there's a case to be made for a theme setting on a screen somewhere. Or as others have said, this could be set at the browser level per site.

I just think having a toggle up in the header is sort of a UX waste.

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Zak 1 point a month ago

our ticketing system’s website I put in light mode (even though they have a dark mode) because their dark mode looks like shit.

Once, a client asked me to put a spinner on a page that was slow to load. I made the underlying SQL query 2000 times faster instead.

A toggle is not the best solution to your problem.

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FrogOnShark 1 point a month ago

A toggle is not the best solution to your problem.

100% correct. Unfortunately I'm far more likely to have access to a toggle than for them to make their dark mode nice.

E.g. I've asked them to add more languages to the code button in their WYSIWYG editor for replying to tickets. I don't use/do any web stuff but I had figured out that they use Froala, and Froala uses prism.js. I asked them to include 5 more languages (bash/sh/shell, batch, ini, json, Powershell) and requested that the list be sorted alphabetically, and told them it should just be a matter of changing the Froala codeSnippetLanguage plugin option. I haven't even had a reply in 5 months.