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🔥 New blog post: Dark mode toggles that expose three states (system, light, dark) seem like the best option. Until you think about user goals, that is. Before rushing to disagree, hear me out. lea.verou.me/blog/2026/da... PS: As a data point, @jakearchibald.com was converted after reading this 😅

lea.verou.meDark mode toggles: two states are enough • Lea VerouYes, the underlying model must have three states, but one is always irrelevant to the actual user goal. Users do not seek out solutions to problems they don’t currently have. A lot of the hate towards...

Luke

@lukewarlow.dev

6 Aug

Okay, I wouldn't say I'm convinced but I accept the argument. I admittedly prefer the settings UI style to the fixed header UI so that's perhaps where my thinking on this comes from. I also admit I'm so used to broken two-state UI which also probably impacts my opinion too.

Lea Verou, PhD

@lea.verou.me

Yeah, this is specific to the header UI (or sidebar/footer in some cases). Settings panels are a totally different use case. (as explained in this section: lea.verou.me/blog/2026/da... )

6/8/26, 1:34 pm0 reposts4 likes

Samo Korošec

@samokorosec.bsky.social

6 Aug

“[…] but no matter how hard I tried to word it well, the question kept getting so misunderstood.” I guess that’s why I do not have the temperament to be a scientist. That alone would make me doubt the topic at hand. 😅

Samo Korošec

@samokorosec.bsky.social

6 Aug

Having seen some of the discourse, I assumed for many it’s just not a big enough friction point to quickly understand the different approaches (plus peeps didn’t read carefully). Which makes getting good feedback really hard, as there are not as many strong opinions available.