Signs it is time to revisit dark mode

This is cheap to get right at the start and expensive to retrofit. A few signals that dark mode is due some attention.

Design decisions are the ones clients feel most confident arguing about, which makes it worth separating taste from evidence early. The version that survives contact with a real deadline is the simple one.

The signals

• Nobody can say when it was last reviewed
• The answer depends on who you ask
• Pure black on pure white is harsher than a slightly softened pair
• Respect the visitor's system preference before your own default

How to approach it

Shadows stop working in dark mode, so borders carry the depth. There is a version of this that is over-engineered, and it is worth avoiding. The practical test is whether someone new to the project could tell, in a minute, that it had been handled.

How to tell if yours is fine

The measurable part of design is whether people can find what they came for and act on it without hesitating. Three things worth confirming about dark mode before you move on:

• Someone can say what the current setup is without going to look
• Respect the visitor's system preference before your own default — and you know whether that is true here
• There is a way to tell whether the last change to this helped

None of this needs a rewrite. Most of it is a morning's work once someone decides to do it.