Great write up. Glad to see they're making some changes as the current interface still feels like 2005 with the main feed at 500px wide. And as always, dark mode is welcome.
I really hope this helps performance on the site. In the past year or so I've been noticing that when the page sits in an unfocused tab for a while, clicking back usually takes 20+ seconds to actually load and I'm stuck at a white screen. It actually locks up the tab pretty well too, so navigating to other addresses and such takes a pretty long time.
About every 3 minutes I went a little mad with the new interface. With the old one, photos open, and you can click almost anywhere to close them.
With the new (desktop) interface, you have to find the X to close the photo. No, no, not the X you find on the top right of every other interface ever. This time it's on the top left!
I've been using the new Facebook and the interface is even slower than before. It also feels (may not actually be) less information-dense, forcing me to interact with the page more to see the same information, compounding the problem.
I don't get this infatuation with dark mode, beyond it looking cool. People claim it helps with eye strain, but a brighter background constricts your pupils, improving focus.
In my experience light mode will work fine on things like e-paper displays, but when you have an emissive or transmissive display the bright light can be straining.
I also feel like dark mode highlights text more, making it easier to identify the text. If I use light mode in text editors I get completely lost very quickly.
I think people might have different sensitivities to this issue. Before I changed everything to dark mode, I had trouble concentrating on a bright screen especially in a dimly lit room. Dark mode feels like a total game changer for my productivity.
It never occurred to me that this could be the reason for dark mode blurriness, but it makes sense intuitively. (Think you mean "constricts" rather than "dilates" though.)
The only thing I have to add is you can think of constricted pupils like a pin-hole camera or a higher f-number on a camera aperture. You need brighter light, but the depth of field is wider.
I really hope this helps performance on the site. In the past year or so I've been noticing that when the page sits in an unfocused tab for a while, clicking back usually takes 20+ seconds to actually load and I'm stuck at a white screen. It actually locks up the tab pretty well too, so navigating to other addresses and such takes a pretty long time.