Hopefully you'll put theme options in the app...as should have been done with this update.
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Posted 4 years ago
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I’m Heather, the Product Manager for the IMDb Android app and I’d like to address your questions around the switch to the dark theme in v6.1.4.
We did not make the decision to switch to a dark theme lightly and we know some people will prefer one theme over another. Many factors went into the decision, including customer requests for a dark theme and comparative usage data of the dark vs. the light theme in our iOS app. Those requests and data showed a strong preference for a dark theme.
We also considered how people use the app. We know many of you use the app while watching shows at home and a dark theme doesn’t require your eyes to adjust back to the screen and is less distracting to other people in the room, especially if you watch shows in the dark like I do.
As the team talked through this change, we also evaluated providing an option like we do in iOS to choose between themes. We decided against this because two themes means doubled design, development, and quality assurance work for the user experience in every release going forward. Doing the duplicate work to support two themes takes time away from working on other features customers have requested, like editable lists, (coming very soon!)
Thank you for using the IMDb Android app and I hope you'll give the dark theme a week or so!
Heather- 2 Posts
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I care little about the development costs, to be frank. I only care that you've removed a feature and made your app unusable for me and, very likely, many others. I hope the team reconsiders.
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Thank you both for following up and sharing more details about your experiences with the app.
Accessibility and usability are very important to us and reports like yours help us better understand where we can do better in the future, particularly when we blend the science (industry standards or customer data) with the art (making a judgement call about what to do) to make the final product.
On the science front, the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (https://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG20/), which also apply to mobile apps, call for general minimum contrast ratios of 4.5:1 and 7:1 for enhanced viewing. The heading text contrast ratio in the app is now 10.57:1 and main text is 8.22:1. For reference, black on white or white on black text has a contrast ratio of 21:1.
(http://webaim.org/resources/contrastchecker/ allows you to evaluate the contrast ratio for different combinations of foreground and background colors. Our background color is #303030, heading text is #E6E6E6, and main text is #CCCCCC.)
Obviously the standards don't address your personal requirements. I've shared your feedback with our design and development team to consider how to address for future releases of the app.
Thank you again for using IMDb.
Heather
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