Have you noticed that there are business websites and apps now that offer a dark mode? This can be either via a toggle switch that is floating around on the screen or by a dedicated section in a settings menu. Either way, this is a trend that has been going on for a little while now.
Major brands such as Android, Facebook, Google, and Apple have incorporated this so-called “dark mode” option on their platforms.
Not to mention, more and more webmasters are now incorporating this dark mode into their website designs as well.
With that said, now you might have questions such as what is this dark mode and should you incorporate it on your website as well.
Here in this article, we will look into just that and all the other things that you should know about this topic to stand on a well-informed decision about whether or not you should incorporate a dark mode option on your website.
Now that you are ready to learn, let’s dive right in.
What is Dark mode?
Dark mode as the name suggests is a low-light user interface (UI). This means that the background color of a website or application that uses dark mode is usually black or a shade of grey, not white.
Image Source: https://www.figma.com/community/file/1086851057789527871/Dark-Mode-Color
Dark mode is primarily used in low-light situations or at night time as it makes it easy for users to use an interface reducing eye strains due to the low brightness compared to the light mode that we all currently use.
Dark mode is usually offered as an option to the user, they can switch to the dark mode from the default light mode and switch back when they desire.
Also, it is worth mentioning that there are some websites that have the default view of dark mode. This can be due to their target market preference, branding, and product or service specifics. In such cases, they can offer a light mode switch option instead.
Benefits Of Using Dark Mode In Web Design
We have already touched on this point in the above section, but one of the most important benefits of using dark mode on a website is that it reduces eye strain of the users. Many internet users get eye strain when consuming information online, especially in low light and at night time because of the brightness of the screens due to the white background.
This causes not only eye strain but headaches as well. Therefore, by using a dark mode theme, you are able to reduce or completely eliminate this problem as it dims down the brightness and makes it easy for the eyes to consume website content on any device.
The second benefit of using dark mode is that it saves battery life. Studies from Google have shown that using dark mode increase battery life as it dims the brightness of the screen. Therefore, this allows the website visitors to consume more content even if the battery of the device they are using is low.
Using dark mode also helps you improve the UX of the website. As you typically offer dark mode with a toggle switch, you are able to give website visitors the option to switch to the mode they like best. As we mentioned earlier, dark mode is more suitable for content consumption in low-light situations or at night. Therefore, if someone is consuming website content in the daytime, they are able to consume the content in light mode and switch to the dark mode when needed improving the UX of the website.
Not to mention, there are people that prefer dark mode over light mode any time of day, and offering dark mode on your website will be in favor of those users as well.
Things To Consider When Implementing A Dark Mode To Your Website
Implementing a dark mode to your website is not something that you can just go ahead and do. There are some important factors that you should consider first.
We implement a dark mode in our websites to improve the overall UX. But did you know that the UX of the website can also be ruined by implementing dark mode the wrong way? Although we mentioned that dark mode improves the UX of websites, it only does so for certain types of websites.
To be more specific, dark mode works best for websites that have minimalistic types of content. If you have a website that has webpages with a lot of content that uses several types of multimedia, implementing a dark mode can be a real challenge as you will not be able to show off some elements prominently as much as you can do so in light mode. Also, this will make the overall visual aesthetic of the website dull and boarding to consume.
There are some colors that do not go well with a dark mode. If you use a lot of colors in your content, especially with images or other visual elements on your website, make sure that they do not get blend in when switched to the dark mode. This will make it harder for some text on your content to read and for visual elements such as graphs and charts to understand.
Consider how you are going to offer the toggle switch without ruining the UX UI of the website. Offering a toggle switch for the users to switch from the light mode to the dark mode must be in a place on the screen that website visitors can easily take notice of. While at the same time, it should not interfere with the website visitor’s UX by blocking any elements on the website. Therefore, you must consider how you can implement a toggle switch effectively on your website without affecting the overall UX.
If your website offers long-form content or content that requires the website visitors to spend a long time on your website, then a dark mode is crucial as it will help reduce the eye strain of the website visitors that consume those long-form content. Therefore, this is something that you should consider as well.
Another thing you should consider here is your target market. There are some target markets that like dark mode. Here, you can use dark mode all the time as your default view. Also, if you use light mode and if your target market is older people, they might benefit from dark mode as they will have trouble consuming your content as they tend to have more eye strain than a younger target market. With that said, make sure to conduct proper target market research before implementing a dark mode as well.
We know that there is a lot for you to consider here and it looks and can be challenging to get all aspects right. To make your life easier here, make sure to get opinions from your developers or if you design your own website, seek help from the online community via forums and social groups or get some expert consultation if able to afford it.
Dark mode best practices
As you may know by now, designing and implementing a dark mode on your website is no easy task. It is actually a very complicated process that you need to plan out very carefully to ensure that you don’t accidentally affect the UX of your website in a negative way while trying to improve your website’s UX.
With that said, let’s look at some best practices that you can follow;
1. Avoid making your website too dark
Although dark mode means using darker background colors to make it easy for website visitors to consume website content, using pure black or in other words “pitch black” is a huge mistake. This is because pure black has a very distinct contrast to it and it will be hard on the website visitor’s eyes. Therefore, use darker shades of gray or lighter shades of black to dim down that contrast and provide a more aesthetically pleasing design.
Image Source: https://llinformatics.com/blog/web-development/dark-mode-design-tips/
2. Have a balanced contrast of colors
As we talked about on the above point, color contrasts play a major part in dark mode design. As the background colors of a dark mode interface are usually a darker color such as black or darker shades of gray, there must be other colors there to well-balance out the elements of the website. For example, if you have long-form content, make sure to use white aesthetics on text, buttons, icons, etc. This will balance out the entire web page and offer a good UX to the website visitor consuming it.
Also, while we are on the topic of colors, make sure to avoid using too much vibrant colors in your dark mode as it will completely diminish the goal of a dark mode website design. Instead, use muted/lighter colors as much as possible and use vibrant colors only on elements where they are absolutely necessary.
Image Source: https://www.numerro.io/blog/designing-dashboard-in-dark-mode
3. Make sure to use different shades of white
White is defiantly going to be the most used secondary color in a dark mode website design. In order to provide a good UX and have a proper structure for the website content, different shades of white must also be used. For example. In order to differentiate a heading from a text body, the text body can be a lighter shade of white while the heading remains a strong white color to clearly divide off the two sections of text.
Image Source: https://blog.prototypr.io/dark-mode-ui-best-practices-8101782de93f
4. Maintain your brand identity at all costs
A lot of websites just throw away their original brand colors in their dark mode as they don’t blend well. This is a huge mistake for businesses as they must always promote their brand to people. Here, try to use the brand colors as much as possible in prominent places such as CTAs, and highlighted sections. Also, don’t be afraid to adjust the brand colors a little in terms of contrast to get it to match well with the dark mode visual aesthetic.
Image Source: https://dribbble.com/shots/14210597–2-Digital-agency-landing-page
5. Display a clear toggle switch
Make sure to display a simple, yet functional toggle switch on the website for the website users to switch between dark mode and light mode. This will allow you to provide an even better UX to website visitors as they are able to consume content with the mode they like most. Also, make sure to display the toggle switch without blocking any other elements on the website.
Gif Source: https://codyhouse.co/blog/post/dark-light-switch-css-javascript
6. Test and adapt
It is highly unlikely that you get the design of your dark mode design exactly correct the very first time. It is a process through trial and error. You can deploy a beta version or deploy the original version of the dark mode live on your website and get valuable feedback from real-time visitors. This will allow you to cover up any potholes and eventually offer a dark mode design that your target market will love to use.
Conclusion
The trend of dark mode on websites is still in the initial stages. Most web design experts predict that this trend will fire up and spread very quickly through the web design industry in the coming months. With that said, we hope that with this article, we were able to provide you with some value on how you can take your website one step closer to success.
If you have any questions or if you have any valuable input on this topic, please use the comments section below.
Until next time, cheers!
About The Author
Anjana Wickramaratne is a web design and digital marketing expert here at Inspirenix. He is always on the lookout for new trends and news in the industry to adapt to his digital marketing strategies and gives back what he learns to the community whenever he can.
