It reduced interruptions in attempting to make things pixel perfect.Even with PaintCode and the person with the exact vision of how it works executing it still took a long time. Without PaintCode it would have been nearly impossible. After having made it in PaintCode I can completely understand why. When I first told Johnny about how it would work he got pretty hesitant. It opened up new possibilities, like the arrow animation that is covered in part 2.Changing the color scheme or decreasing a shadow was now just a click away. It gave control, and got rid of the hesitancy to improve on a design for fear of interrupting development.If I were seeking a new job or team to collaborate with my ability to deliver actual code would be attractive. Increased my value within the development process.Re-exporting the style kit, when a shadow just had to go. Designing/importing elements into PaintCodeĤ. Back and forth for changes in design and pushing pixelsģ. It’s a delicate balancing act as there are potentially many benefits but also many pitfalls.4. It’s crucial a designer consider context, content (contrast and readability), the device, and use case, and have a good reason for their choice. Designers shouldn’t do it for the wrong reasons-to be hip, different, or copy someone else’s design. In closing, the decision to go with a dark UI needs to be approached with care. For example, settings pages with widgets and forms and data tables could have been designed on a light background, and analytics pages with charts could have been designed with a darker color scheme. In summary, it would have been nearly impossible to make it all work with a dark-themed UI.ĭepending on the appropriateness of the application, perhaps the right choice would have been to suggest a mix of light and dark UIs. Navigation, layout, and functionality would have become incredibly difficult to manage while achieving sufficient contrast and a consistent color scheme. The platform used a standard set of SaaS application UI components and consequently was full of forms, widgets, dropdowns, pictograms, and icons along with text and numerical data in tables. After several meetings, and by rallying the design team and product managers behind the cause, we were able to talk him down from such a potentially disastrous decision. Here is a real-world example of when not to use a dark-themed UI: I was involved with a B2B SaaS project where the CEO was adamant that, in order “to be different,” he wanted to go with a dark-themed UI-which matched the company’s branding… for the entire platform. Going back even further-thirty-five thousand years to the Paleolithic era (the caveman days), we find cave drawings of lions and mammoths generally placed on a light background with charcoal or burnt bones used to draw the depictions. Think newspapers and magazines-which have been around for over 350 years. There is also an expectation: people are used to seeing a variety of content rendered with dark ink on a white background presented along with images. dark characters on light background ( Bauer, D., Bonacker, M., and Cavonius, C. In one famous study, “visual fatigue” was significantly greater when subjects read light characters on a dark background vs. Most studies have shown that dark text on a light background is superior to light text on a dark background, i.e., it’s easier to read. Branding may also influence the decision because company logos and colors will not work with a dark color palette. According to many scientific studies, optimal legibility requires black text on a white background. Contrast, text, and readability and the ability to work with a wide range of subtle colors are some of them. There are good reasons for choosing a bright background. The color scheme will have a long-lasting impact and must be carefully chosen-and it all starts with the selection of a background on which the design elements will be placed-the “canvas.” The usual choice, almost by default, is a white background. Nevertheless, designers should tread carefully if they choose to walk on the “dark side.”Ĭreating the look and feel of a product is one of a designer’s primary responsibilities-the initial design decision must be appropriate to the product’s purpose, the particular situation, and its audience. Dark UIs are dramatic, stylish, and elegant.
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