WhatsApp has now announced the roll out of dark mode for all the Android and iOS users. Dark mode for WhatsApp offers a fresh look on a familiar experience.
The company has designed a special dark gray background and off-white color that lowers the brightness of the screen, cuts down the glare, and improves contrast and readability. Users on Android 10 and iOS 13 can use dark mode by enabling it in system settings. Users on Android 9 and below can go into WhatsApp Settings > Chats > Theme > select ‘Dark’.
The Dark mode on WhatsApp is designed to reduce eye strain in low light environments. During testing the company says it found that combining pure black and white creates high contrast that can lead to eye fatigue. The feature is rolling out “in the coming days” to the latest version of WhatsApp.
WhatsApp said that when designing dark mode it spent time researching and experimenting with a focus on two particular areas:
– Readability: When choosing colors, we wanted to minimize eye fatigue and use colors that are closer to the system defaults on iPhone and Android respectively.
– Information Hierarchy: We wanted to help users easily focus their attention on each screen. We did this by using color and other design elements to make sure the most important information stands out.