Do you prefer the light or dark style?

[Myrthos]

We have two styles at the watch, a dark and a light. As we are in the process of moving to Xenforo and need to create a skin for it that at the very least gives somewhat of an RPGWatch feeling, we have a question.
If we would have to choose for time reasons, what would we need to implement first, light or dark?

(To change styles, scroll to the bottom left of any forum page and click the link next to the paintbrush icon to select between the available Light and Dark styles.)

 

[Hastar]

Whoops, I thought the question was about turkey meat.

Disregard my answer. I like the light style of this website.

 

[Ripper]

Dark all the way. I can't stare at blazing white webpages for any length of time.

 

[Couchpotato]

Dark as the white layout hurt my eyes. To much strain on the old eyes.

That's me after thirty minutes with the white layout. (Image not my own.)

 

[Ripper]

One colour scheme and layout I find very easy on the eye (literally) is the STEP modding forum.

https://stepmodifications.org/forum/

 

[HiddenX]

Light

 

[Redglyph]

Light-on-dark is recognized to be bad for the eyesight and mine is already bad enough, so I prefer light.

EDIT: It all depends on what is "dark". Some dark themes are less damaging, like the one shown by Ripper above. It's good-looking and fine as long as you don't have to read in daylight on a sunny day - perfect for night time. But if that's like these forums, however, it's medically unhealthy and I just can't read it no matter when.

 

[Ripper]

Light-on-dark is recognized to be bad for the eyesight and mine is already bad enough, so I prefer light.

I think there's pros and cons on both sides. Dark themes mean your eyes have to work a bit harder to focus, but you are reducing blue light and glare. For me, it's definitely the latter that causes eye fatigue.

 

[Redglyph]

I think there's pros and cons on both sides. Dark themes mean your eyes have to work a bit harder to focus, but you are reducing blue light and glare. For me, it's definitely the latter that causes eye fatigue.

Yeah, I added a nuance in my answer. I did some research a while back and asked a few doctors as well, I think the dark-on-light is pretty much the universal recommendation. But I know that dark themes are very popular. Ultimately it must depend on the lighting conditions you're in.

Light theme that are very bright - pure black on white, are only hurting when you look at a screen in the dark, which is not ideal especially if you have to read documents too, or in general if you have to look at something else than your screen (which is recommended to do periodically to exercise the eye's focus and to make sure you don't forget to blink).

But I'm comfortable with a dark theme such as the one you've shown when it's not too sunny outside, so typically in the evening or in winter.

 

[Ripper]

Yeah, and I don't personally like the current dark theme on the Watch - it's more like a high-contrast theme, and is pretty harsh in itself. I modify it to my liking with a Firefox addon.

 

[bkrueger]

I prefer light, but that is more by habit, so I don't have a strong opinion.

Edit, an afterthought: I have read books for much longer than computer displays, so black writing on white paper feels "natural" for me and my eyes.

 

[crpgnut]

Dark. Like others have mentioned, the dark on light kills my eyes and gives me a headache. I can read white text on black much easier than the reverse and for longer periods.

 

[Pladio]

I much prefer dark usually.

 

[Redglyph]

Dark. Like others have mentioned, the dark on light kills my eyes and gives me a headache. I can read white text on black much easier than the reverse and for longer periods.

How do you do when you have to read a book?

EDIT - I'm really curious why some people have more difficult to read white-on-black and others black-on-white, that's why I'm asking. I'm wondering if that has anything to do with the monitor brightness setting too, I never set mine to max or it would be way too bright.

 

[Pladio]

How do you do when you have to read a book?

EDIT - I'm really curious why some people have more difficult to read white-on-black and others black-on-white, that's why I'm asking. I'm wondering if that has anything to do with the monitor brightness setting too, I never set mine to max or it would be way too bright.

À book doesn't give out light, it's not fully comparable.

 

[wiretripped]

Light.

 

[Carnifex]

I think I'm good with either, no real preference here. I think my Kindle might have spoiled me over the past few years.

 

[Myrthos]

EDIT: It all depends on what is "dark".

Dark is what you get when you click on the Dark link in the top bar

 

[Redglyph]

À book doesn't give out light, it's not fully comparable.

I agree, it depends on the brightness but it's never as comfortable as a book, no matter the dark/light mode. If that's 70-80%, the white colour is correct and the light is comparable to what book pages reflect.


Any research on the web will confirm that it's usually better to read black on white, because the iris is a little more closed instead of more opened, which makes the image easier to focus and less blurred or fuzzy (halation). With white on dark, we have to make out the bright dots that tend to scatter, or "spread" across one another.

The worst, in either case, is having too much contrast. The dark mode of this website is almost there, very uncomfortable, but I've seen much worse. When it's softer, like the darcula theme in Jetbrains tools for ex, the contrast is more reasonable which makes it OK except on a bright day.

 

[JFarrell71]

I set most of my webpages to the dark mode when they have them (my hotmail and Reddit, for example), but I like the light mode here. It helps that there's a lot of light blue backgrounds, not stark white. Of course that may not be true in the new location, so I can't speak to whether I'd prefer *that* light mode.