Dark Mode and Eye Strain – Designing Word Games for Night Play

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Puzzle games are traditionally played lying in bed, in the darkness, keeping your phone 30 centimeters from your eyes. And this surely is not the way how you expected games to be played and it is shown by the design. Bright letters on the bright white background at night are surely uncomfortable, and the advice not to play like this was surely not heeded.
Dark mode is the solution in such case, but there are some things to understand about it first. Traditional explanation of the dark mode is mostly wrong.

What dark mode does and does not help with
Typical explanation of the dark mode is the blocking of the blue light and making it easy to fall asleep. This is a bit oversimplified explanation.
Dark mode decreases the amount of emitted light. During the night, in the dark room, white background serves as a little lamp pointed right into your eyes as your pupils dilate in the darkness. This is the very root of the eye strain.
The decreasing of light level reduces the mismatch. And this is the core of dark mode mechanics, more important than the color temperature.


Typical explanationRealities of dark mode
Dark mode blocks blue lightLows light emission, but warmth filter is more effective
Dark mode protects from eye damageNo proven evidence that screens cause eye damage
Dark mode makes things easier to readNot always works during the day, always works during the night
Dark mode saves battery lifeWorks only for OLED screens, negligible for LCD
Why dark mode is worse during the day
And here is where most people make a mistake of switching dark mode on permanently.
The light letters on the dark background cause the so-called halation effect when bright glyphs leak to the background. Halation effect is especially noticeable for astigmatism, which is quite common condition, and it slows down reading.
During the day, in bright room, dark mode is usually not the right choice. During the night, in the dark room, dark mode is the right choice. The automatic setting depending on the display configuration is the right choice.
Wordle Unlimited provides you three options of the same thing in the gear menu: light, dark and auto. Auto option should be the default choice for everyone as it uses your phone settings based on the time of the day.

The specific problem of colors at night
Guessing game has its specific problem, and the dark mode alone does not solve it. The green and orange tiles are the blocks of the saturated colors, and in the dark room at night they become even more aggressive than on the white.
Also, the tiles are the primary information channel, and you cannot dim them to the background.
This is where the high contrast mode helps, not due to the color blindness. Blue and orange palette used in it is better in low light than green and orange, and it should be tested even without color vision deficiency.

Sound at night
Worth mentioning as it is another part of night playing. If you are lying in bed next to the person who is sleeping, the game with any sounds is unusable.
The sound toggle button is available in the same menu, and you should consider disabling it permanently if you play in the evening.

What really helps with eye strain
Dark mode is the one element of the short list of things, and other solutions are even better.
Screen brightness. The decreasing of the brightness works better than the dark mode itself. Most people use too high settings in the dark room.
Distance. Keeping the phone at 20 centimeters from your eyes increases additional strain to the muscles controlling focusing of your eyesight. Arm's distance is better.
Blinking. People blink two times less often while concentrating on the screen, and the lack of moisture contributes significantly to the feeling of strain. This is why looking away periodically helps.
Warmth filter. The Night Shift in iOS and Night Light in Android shifts the color temperature towards more amber and solves the problem with blue light better than dark mode does.
Stopping. The best way, but the least popular one.

Honest position about sleep
There is scientific evidence that the exposure to light at night affects the level of melatonin and delays sleep. There is less scientific evidence that dark mode actually helps with this issue as it depends more on the duration and the total light level than the interface color.
Playing three rounds before going to sleep will have negligible impact. Playing an hour of the game, the format of the interface will not matter at all.
Practical part: dark mode, lowered brightness, warmth filter and decision to stop. First three are settings, and the last one is the working one.

How to set it up
Theme, sound and high contrast modes are accessible via the gear icon at wordleunlimited.dev, and the settings are saved between the sessions. Fullscreen mode is also useful for the night play as it removes additional interfaces and leaves less screen lit.
There is no need to download the app and create an account. For the evening play, this means no login screen before playing.