What is Dark mode?
The short answer
Dark mode is a colour theme with light text on a dark background, offered as an alternative to a light theme or matched to the visitor's system setting.
Dark mode, explained
Sites can follow the operating system with the prefers-color-scheme media query. Dark themes need their own contrast checks; simply inverting colours rarely works.
Questions people ask about Dark mode
What is Dark mode?
Dark mode is a colour theme with light text on a dark background, offered as an alternative to a light theme or matched to the visitor's system setting.
Related terms
A colour palette is the fixed set of colours a site uses, typically a background, text colours, one accent for actions and a few states such as success and error.
Colour contrastColour contrast is the difference in brightness between text and its background; WCAG AA asks for at least 4.5 to 1 for normal text and 3 to 1 for large text.
CSS variablesCSS variables store reusable values, such as colours, spacing or fonts, in one place so a whole site can be themed or changed consistently.
UXUX, or user experience, is how it feels to use a website: whether people can find what they came for, understand it and finish what they started without friction.
Part of the Web Encyclopedia by Apex Flow Digital. Definitions are general knowledge, kept current, with no invented statistics.