research-article

A First Look at Dark Mode in Real-world Android Apps

Authors:

Hourieh Khalajzadeh,

John GrundyAuthors Info & Claims

ACM Transactions on Software Engineering and Methodology, Volume 33, Issue 1

Article No.: 3, Pages 1 - 26

https://doi.org/10.1145/3604607

Published: 23 November 2023 Publication History

Abstract

Android apps often have a “dark mode” option used in low-light situations, for those who find the conventional color palette problematic, or because of personal preferences. Typically developers add a dark mode option for their apps with different backgrounds, text, and sometimes iconic forms. We wanted to understand the actual provision of this dark mode in real-world Android apps through an empirical study of posts from Stack Overflow and real-world Android app analysis. Using these approaches, we identified the aspects of dark mode that developers implemented as well as the key difficulties they experienced in implementing it. We performed a quantitative analysis using open-coding of more than 300 discussion threads to create a taxonomy regarding the aspects discussed by developers with respect to dark mode in Android. Our quantitative analysis of over 6,000 Android apps highlights which dark mode features are typically provided in Android apps and which aspects developers care about during dark mode design. We also examined four app development support tools to see how well they aid Android app development for dark mode. From our analysis, we distilled some key lessons to guide further research and actions in aiding developers with supporting users who require such assistive features. For example, developers should be aware of the potential risks in using unsuitable dark mode design schema and researchers should take dark mode features into consideration when developing app development support tools.

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Cited By

Lehmann MNunes RBarroso JRocha T(2024)Good Practices for Designing a UI/UX Motorcycle Display: A Systematic Literature ReviewWSEAS TRANSACTIONS ON INFORMATION SCIENCE AND APPLICATIONS10.37394/23209.2024.21.4521(499-508)Online publication date: 15-Oct-2024
https://doi.org/10.37394/23209.2024.21.45
Andrew SBishop CTigwell G(2024)Light and Dark ModeProceedings of the ACM on Interactive, Mobile, Wearable and Ubiquitous Technologies10.1145/36435398:1(1-23)Online publication date: 6-Mar-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3643539
Hersh MLeporini BBuzzi M(2024)A comparative study of disabled people's experiences with the video conferencing tools Zoom, MS Teams, Google Meet and SkypeBehaviour & Information Technology10.1080/0144929X.2023.228653343:15(3777-3796)Online publication date: 9-Jan-2024
https://doi.org/10.1080/0144929X.2023.2286533

Index Terms

A First Look at Dark Mode in Real-world Android Apps
1. Software and its engineering
  1. Software creation and management
    1. Software verification and validation
      1. Empirical software validation

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Published In

cover image ACM Transactions on Software Engineering and Methodology

ACM Transactions on Software Engineering and Methodology Volume 33, Issue 1

January 2024

933 pages

EISSN:1557-7392

DOI:10.1145/3613536

Editor:
Mauro Pezzè
USI Universitá della Svizzera italiana and SIT Schaffhausen Institute of Technology, Switzerland

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Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than the author(s) must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected].

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Publication History

Published: 23 November 2023

Online AM: 24 June 2023

Accepted: 23 May 2023

Revised: 13 May 2023

Received: 24 June 2022

Published in TOSEM Volume 33, Issue 1

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Cited By

Lehmann MNunes RBarroso JRocha T(2024)Good Practices for Designing a UI/UX Motorcycle Display: A Systematic Literature ReviewWSEAS TRANSACTIONS ON INFORMATION SCIENCE AND APPLICATIONS10.37394/23209.2024.21.4521(499-508)Online publication date: 15-Oct-2024
https://doi.org/10.37394/23209.2024.21.45
Andrew SBishop CTigwell G(2024)Light and Dark ModeProceedings of the ACM on Interactive, Mobile, Wearable and Ubiquitous Technologies10.1145/36435398:1(1-23)Online publication date: 6-Mar-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3643539
Hersh MLeporini BBuzzi M(2024)A comparative study of disabled people's experiences with the video conferencing tools Zoom, MS Teams, Google Meet and SkypeBehaviour & Information Technology10.1080/0144929X.2023.228653343:15(3777-3796)Online publication date: 9-Jan-2024
https://doi.org/10.1080/0144929X.2023.2286533

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