Dark Mode for the WiteSand Portal: Seeing Things A New Way

Brady O. Bruce, Vice President, Marketing at WiteSand

Everything old is new again.

You may remember or may have heard stories of CRT-based dark screens and text in white. A lot of quarters, and happy hours, were spent on early arcade video games like Pong and Asteroid with white action elements on a black background.

Pong by Atari, 1972

“If only you knew the power of the Dark Side”

Darth Vader, Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back

The last few years have seen the emergence of dark mode GUIs (sometimes called “dark theme”). Developers have embraced them citing several reasons: 

  • Dark mode creates less eye strain
  • Dark mode makes text and diagrams more legible
  • Dark mode improves the visual ingestion of large amounts of information
  • Dark mode increases concentration and decreases distraction
  • Dark mode is less disruptive to the Circadian rhythm (the sleep/wake cycle)
  • Dark mode improves battery life

While one may argue the relative merits or scientific proof for some of the above, there is little doubt that more people employ dark mode more often than ever before. Operating systems for smartphones, laptops, and desktop computers now come standard with routines that switch automatically from light mode to dark mode at sunset. Not long ago, Microsoft debuted dark mode for Office 365 and Google now has dark mode for search in beta. In continuously low light environments such as network operations centers, dark mode GUIs are de rigueur.

But here’s an inarguable justification for many other people: Dark mode just looks really cool. Colors pop against dark backgrounds. Contrast is king.

We like it, too. So, today we announce a dark mode option for the WiteSand Portal.

In the end, whether you select dark mode to get more done, to make your eyes happier, prolong battery life, or just because your application and data look great that way – or even if you rarely use it – it’s good to have the choice. Driven by popular demand, dark mode will continue to proliferate across your most of your devices and applications.

We would love to hear your comments below. Would you prefer dark mode or light mode as the default for WiteSand?

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