Recommendations for night mode compatibility on Wikimedia wikis

Allowing users to switch between light and dark mode is a feature that has gained adoption across a broad range of websites, mobile devices, etc., as a way of giving the user more control to make their reading experience more comfortable.

Across Wikimedia wikis, there are currently efforts underway to introduce dark mode as a first-class option in the user's preferences on the desktop and mobile sites. The Wikipedia apps for iOS and Android have already had options to switch between light/dark mode for some time (in fact the apps also have additional themes of Sepia and Black).

A significant road block to implementing dark mode is the fragmentation of how templates are constructed and styled, as well as the usage of explicit colors, specified as inline CSS styles in certain elements across various articles.

We believe that these issues could be resolved by raising awareness of dark mode among editors of Wikipedia articles, and especially among template editors, since templates can be included in arbitrary numbers of articles, and therefore have an outsized impact for dark mode compatibility.