Reducing Eye Strain in OS X Yosemite

Question

Reducing Eye Strain in OS X Yosemite

I use the OS X Finder a lot in my work and though I have perfect vision I'm finding that I'm getting severe eye strain with Yosemite that I never had with previous releases of OS X. I mean my eyes get physically red and I have to take a break so they can recover, which interrupts my productivity. I thought maybe the faded low-contrast grey text on white that's everywhere in Yosemite might be to blame so I turned on Increase Contrast in the Accessibility section of System Preferences, but then things (especially the Dock) get super ugly like this:

The file attributes in Finder (like Date Modified, Size, etc.) are a little more readable this way, but at a glance it's hard to see which window is actually in the foreground. All they greys just blend together. I get maybe an extra hour of usability before my eye strain hits hard, but it's just not a pleasant user experience which Apple used to be masters at. I mean aesthetics aside, it's simply a usability issue for me.

By contrast, I could use older versions of OS X for hours on end with absolutely no eye strain. I think it has to do with the use of color, depth, and contrast:

I mean even the scroll bars quickly clue the eye into seeing which application window has input focus.

I know this strange low-contrast look is all the rage for some reason, but it's killing my productivity. I guess my question would be, is there a setting I can turn on to have more contrast and a little color in the interface without everything turning into a monochrome flat look circa 1980's?

Even with the Increase Contrast setting on, there are places where the font is still super low contrast and almost unreadable. For example, when launching applications, Yosemite looks like this:

The text displayed under the icons is super low contrast. Is there a separate Increase Contrast setting which will make this text more readable? I mean it used to be super clear like this:

We use all Macs in the office I work in, and other people are having the same usability issue with Yosemite. Fortunately we still have a lot of Macs in the office running older versions of OS X, but we need a way to eventually move forwards with Apple in a way that does not compromise our productivity. I understand Apple feels a need to change things up to look "new", but isn't there some "usability" setting for people like me who need to get real work done and who use their computers for long period of time?

Thanks!

MacBook Pro, OS X Yosemite (10.10.1)

Posted on Jan 30, 2015 12:51 PM

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Answer 1

tbirdvet

Level 6

13,707 points

Jan 30, 2015 4:22 PM in response to Patrick Weisser

Try going to preferences, general and set to "dark Mode" and see if that makes it better on your eyes. You can also try playing with the transparency setting in the accessibility pane.

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Answer 2

MichelPM

Level 10

80,980 points

Jan 30, 2015 4:46 PM in response to Patrick Weisser

Yup,

And nothing you really try to do will help with the readability issues, either.

Another big, BIG reason I ended up dumping Yosemite after a little over three weeks.

My eyes are older and, YES, Yosemite is difficult on the eyes and I was constantly getting headaches or having issues making out common UI elements.

WIth all of the low contrast and transparency effects, Yosemite is an eye straining, dirty-looking, muddy mess of a UI interface.

Just terrible.

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Answer 3

Jan 30, 2015 5:28 PM in response to tbirdvet

Thanks for your response TBirdVet I do appreciate it. Turning on Dark Mode did help with the dock a lot, but several of the program status indicators at the very top of my screen disappeared after doing that (i.e. processor core temperature, drive access and CPU utilization indicators). The Reduce Transparency checkbox on the Accessibility pane is forced on if I turn on the Increase Contrast check box, so all I have left to play with is the slider for the Display Contrast. I took it up just a notch to see if it would help make the active window stand out at least a little bit from the background windows, but I think it makes it blend in even more now so it's really hard to tell at a glance which window has input focus - especially multiple Finder windows which basically look the same aside from the folder content they are displaying:

I'm a long-time Apple user so it makes me really sad to see these changes in the UI when it was so usable (and beautiful) for me personally in previous versions. Apple is an awesome company and still far better than any of the alternatives out there, but somehow this just doesn't feel like an Apple OS to me anymore. I just hope Apple will bring back at least some of the richness and usability of the older versions in some future release.

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Answer 4

Jan 30, 2015 5:36 PM in response to MichelPM

Hey Michel Yeah I may have to go back to a previous version of OS X myself until Apple works on this a little more. Hopefully they're listening to feedback. I just went back to one of the Lion machines I have to compare how the Finder looks. Wow what a difference:

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Answer 5

Feb 12, 2015 9:25 AM in response to Patrick Weisser

I just got turned on to https://justgetflux.com. For 2 months now I've been rubbing my eyes, hitting eye drops 2-3 times a day and feeling sandy and fried at the end of the day. I thought "I must be getting old" - but one commonality was I switched to Yosemite.

White is #FFF or 255, 255, 255 on max in Yosemite. My monitors were producing what felt like seeing those Artic Blue hi-beams on a dark road and I was eating it for 8-10 hours a day.

Obviously if you do anything with color correction you'll want to flip this off, but I was able to back down the tanning booth and enjoy working again.

They do really need to make a dark theme for people that work.

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Answer 6

Feb 12, 2015 10:49 AM in response to cybercussion

Thanks I'll give that a try! It's just such a shame we have to go searching for 3rd party solutions to make Yosemite easier to use. Snow Leopard totally, "Just Worked" for business people with work to get done, and it worked so well on so many levels - memory efficiency, reliability, aesthetics, eye comfort during long work sessions, etc. Hopefully Apple will have a business-friendly version of OS X again someday. Microsoft went down this path with Windows 8 which upset their business users (and a lot of regular users), and they are desperately trying to reverse course with Windows 10. OS X needs another, "Snow Leopard" style release cycle where they focus on streamlining the internals and making the interface usable for long periods of time again. We've had enough new, "features" for a while I think. The one feature we really need back is usability.

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Answer 7

Feb 12, 2015 11:13 AM in response to Patrick Weisser

I'm having all kinds of issues too. Mail jacked up all my SMTP settings so mail was being sent by the wrong servers. I'm probably the only one with more than 1 email account I figure (haha). I had two other friends have this issue to so I know its not just me.

Safari's beachballing in the address bar randomly. I thought it was my network, but my other Macs with Mavericks work fine.

Sites like stackoverflow.com, or JIRA lag 5 - 10 seconds while typing. This site I haven't had the text lag issue on, but I'm not sure as to whats causing it elsewhere.

With mulitple monitors the login prompt just randomly chooses a monitor now. Which isn't a show stopper but I'm not sure why it doesn't remember which one is primary. Seems to remember after it does the rest of the boot up after login.

I was about to buy $69 computer glasses so this just saved me some $$. I really don't want to have to rebuild my machine but if things don't clear up I'm going back to Mavericks.

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Answer 8

Feb 12, 2015 11:26 AM in response to cybercussion

Yeah I read there are a lot of problems with MacMail now, and email is a mission-critical application for our business. We installed Yosemite on a couple of spare machines in our office just to give it a try (including the one I tried using for a few days), but no one here likes the look of it and then of course there's the eye strain issue. I think we'll be staying with the older versions of OS X for now until Apple fixes what they have broken.

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Answer 9

Mar 2, 2015 11:50 PM in response to Patrick Weisser

I only lasted about a day or so. Frustrating.

I've just sent this to http://www.apple.com/feedback/

(If you have a problem, don't forget this step so Apple actually hears about your issue.)

Dear Apple, I've never done this before but I downgraded after finding the Yosemite OS frustratingly difficult. The first thing I noticed was when “flat" window borders were invisible against the background colour of a webpage I opened.

I'm getting past 45 and my vision isn't great but suddenly, with this upgrade, I strained to see basic design elements. Without contrast and colour, it is hard to find buttons, hard to tell icons apart, and very hard to read text. I don’t have a problem with one aesthetic over another, but I couldn’t use the computer.

It's a new feeling to wonder if I won't be capable of using future Apple products. I hadn't really thought about that before. I hope something can be done to make the next version easier for those who have real problems with this one.

I really do hope some of these things can be addressed. I feel like somebody's design opinion is making my computer actually unusable. If I cannot read the text, the computer is broken, or I am, but I hope it's easier to fix the computer.

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Answer 10

Oct 3, 2015 1:07 AM in response to Patrick Weisser

Maverick is a lot more friendly to eyes. Yosemite has dark mode but does not look as good as Maverick original theme. I can't believe Apple has done such blunder. I am not upgrading to Yosemite for this reason.

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Answer 11

Aug 16, 2016 10:17 AM in response to Patrick Weisser

Hello Patrick! I recommend you to download f.lux. It's great for reducing eye strain and its free! Check it out on this article here : http://osxdaily.com/2011/02/25/use-a-mac-at-night-save-your-eyes-sanity-with-flu x/

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