For this scenario to unfold the following has to happen:
1. OS is set to auto mode 2. It's late afternoon 3. User finds they have (for some reason) in the past turned on the Website dark mode (presumably in the daytime) 4. User wants it light now.
This is a pretty tortured hypothetical though. I admit as an engineer, who understands that there's a light/dark signal being passed down, and there's an ability to override that signal, I appreciate separating the "should override" control the way a "3-way" switch allows.
But I have to admit, I cannot imagine a real person getting bit in any way by the implementation the author describes. 90% of people set their OS to the "mode" they want, whether it's full-time or sun-based, and that group never even needs to touch or look at this control (We do default to auto, right?). The other 10% are most likely here because they don't understand they can set this in the OS and they apparently want to toggle to the opposite mode. They might be thinking "I want this dark mode until morning" but "we" in the website actually can't really help them with that unless we start prying into what time it is there and build our own time-based mode. So the best we can do for that user is to shift them into "latched dark mode" and let them come back (as they've demonstrated a knowledge to do) when and if they want the 'lights' back on.
I'm the first to criticize UI designers who rob users of choice in the name of minimalism -- the Alan Dye approach, but this actually screams "Designer thought hard about the actual intent of the users" to me and I like it.
"For example, a keyboard could include a special-purpose power management button (for example, “Power”) that, when pressed during a system sleeping state, generates a wake event. Alternatively, the button(s) on mice and other pointing devices could be used to trigger a wake event. "
Personally I'm totally fine with light/dark/auto but if you really must simplify I see only two true ways:
1. Just offer light and dark. No auto. Whether auto works is out of your control anyway. Users who know and want auto have to switch manually.
2. Just offer auto on/off. Default is off and off is light mode. User who want dark mode will figure out how to configure their system.
(I don't get the "everything needs to support dark theme" thing either tbh)
It's far worse to give the user a false mental model of the underlying system. If the underlying system is complex, but that's out of your control, then it will create confusion in users to paper over it. Please don't do this!
That is, unless you can create a leak-free abstraction. The example given in the article is anything but leak-free.
unlike everybody else in this comment section, i like the two-mode toggle. but that's just my opinion. without user testing numbers, an article saying "users like this better" is useless.
In auto, none of the buttons is pressed (and preferable a small label that says auto is shown). Pressing dark/light will force that mode, enable that button and remove the auto label.
In dark/light mode, you can press the other button to enable the other state. Or you can press the current button to disable it, and switch to auto. This last one is the confusing-at-first interaction, but makes sense if you think about it (it's like saying: I want dark / I want light / I don't care)
warpech•33m ago
This is not a novelty but a built-in feature called “Auto” Appearance in MacOS, iOS, iPadOS. Similar feature exists in Android and KDE.
jmull•21m ago
Isn’t the article about how to best deal with the UI for letting the user indicate that the system should decide? Which covers your case.
warpech•4m ago