# How The New York Times Games Team Delivered Accessible, Cross-Platform Dark Mode

DevFeed: [How The New York Times Games Team Delivered Accessible, Cross-Platform Dark Mode](<https://devfeed.tech/articles/how-the-new-york-times-games-team-delivered-accessible-cross-platform-dark-mode-39153.md>)

Original publisher: [Read original article](<https://open.nytimes.com/implementing-dark-mode-in-the-games-app-be7241ddb7ba?source=rss----51e1d1745b32---4>)

Author: The NYT Open Team

Published: 2026-04-16T15:35:45Z

Content type: article

Language: en

Sources: [New York Times](<https://devfeed.tech/sources/new-york-times.md>)

Topics: [Dark Mode](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/dark-mode.md>), [Mobile](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/mobile.md>), [Android](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/android.md>), [iOS](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/ios.md>), [Jetpack Compose](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/jetpack-compose.md>), [ui](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/ui.md>), [Design system](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/design-system.md>), [XML](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/xml.md>), [pull-requests](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/pull-requests.md>), [SwiftUI](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/swiftui.md>), [Objective-C](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/objective-c.md>)

Tags: [accessible](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/accessible.md>), [android](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/android.md>), [collaboration](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/collaboration.md>), [cross-platform](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/cross-platform.md>), [dark-mode](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/dark-mode.md>), [design](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/design.md>), [design-system](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/design-system.md>), [engineering](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/engineering.md>), [ios](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/ios.md>), [jetpack-compose](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/jetpack-compose.md>), [pull-requests](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/pull-requests.md>), [swiftui](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/swiftui.md>)

## AI overview

The New York Times Games team describes implementing accessible, brand-consistent dark mode across its mobile app. The work coordinated design and engineering across Android and iOS, including XML and Jetpack Compose screens, legacy and modern interfaces, shared assets, external libraries, and testing.

## Source excerpt

Bringing accessible, brand-consistent dark mode to life in The New York Times Games app through cross-platform design and engineering collaboration.Illustration by Allie Sullberg By Vanessa Johnson, Daniel Falokun, Michael Ingber and Oleksandr Zabiiako The Games Mobile App introduced dark mode back in October. This seamless implementation was a collaborative effort, requiring careful planning and management of design, cross-platform coordination, and engineering work across both legacy and modern user interface systems. The process to implement dark mode across the app included consideration on the visuals, colors, and icons that are mode specific to maintain legibility and brand consistency. The New York Times Games team is excited to have delivered this feature before the end of 2025, and thrilled to be able to roll out a feature that continues to make our app accessible for all. Development Work on Mobile On the development side, the mobile and web engineers synchronized assets which were colors, fonts, and images to ensure that hybrid screens showed the correct styles and colors. This was possible since our design system across mobile was constructed in a way that encouraged consistency and scalability across platforms. With clear and easy to follow designs supported by our internal design system, Android and iOS could ensure consistency on both platforms. Screens in dark mode From an Android perspective, it required separate approaches for XML (Extensive Markup Language) based screens which use an imperative, hierarchical approach and Jetpack Compose screens that use a more modern declarative approach. XML and Jetpack Compose are different ways the UI can be constructed. To ensure dark mode compatibility, all features were revisited to make sure they were adapted, especially the additions that were being worked on during the dark mode project. Another aspect of this development was updating external libraries that required making pull requests, creating a versi