WhatsApp releases short film to celebrate the launch of its dark mode feature

We must have all woken up in the middle of the night, sleepily grabbed our phones, only to shock ourselves with a dose of bright light. WhatsApp is rolling out its dark mode to help those night owls who love to send GIFs and text late in the night.

Dark mode, the most requested feature from two billion people around the world who use WhatsApp, is rolling out across the globe for the latest versions of Android and iOS. WhatsApp created a special dark mode experience that replaces the traditional black found on many apps with a dark grey to reduce eye fatigue and make chatting easier on the eyes.

To celebrate the launch of the dark mode, WhatsApp created ‘Hello Darkness,’ a short film that’s sound-tracked by a rare, previously-unreleased version of The Sound of Silence by Paul Simon to amplify this campaign.

Dark Mode short film:

While designing the dark mode, the company spent time researching and experimenting with a focus on two particular areas:

Readability: When choosing colours, the company wanted to minimise eye fatigue and use colours that are closer to the system defaults on iPhone and Android, respectively.

Information Hierarchy: WhatsApp wanted to help users easily focus their attention on each screen. It did this by using colour and other design elements to make sure the most important information stands out.

Users on Android 10 and iOS 13 can use dark mode by enabling it in system settings. Users on Android 9 and below can go into WhatsApp Settings > Chats > Theme > select ‘Dark’.