The New York Times recently rolled out the long-awaited dark mode functionality for iOS and Android news apps.
For years, the case for dark mode was well-supported by both our business goals and user requests. Launching dark mode would help us achieve our long-term vision of producing a high-quality product that is valuable and worth paying for. Furthermore, our research found that dark mode was identified as a “must-have” feature for both subscribers and non-subscribers, many of whom had been requesting the feature with our Customer Care team. We knew that as a content-forward app, having accessible ways of viewing New York Times journalism was important, and we wanted to consider the high standards of our brand when implementing this feature.
There was no denying dark mode was a priority feature we wanted to make happen for our in-app readers. But as our teams discovered early on, it was easier said than done. The path to dark mode meant two major challenges:
First, creating a set of core colors to use for dark mode. And second, implementing those colors across platforms.