I'm trying to apply these usability lessons (based on my multiple-times-daily use of readability + instapaper) to my apps. There's a lot to be said for clear,

I'm trying to apply these usability lessons (based on my multiple-times-daily use of readability + instapaper) to my apps. There's a lot to be said for clear, large, readable, high-contrast text, either where there's a big block of text, or a critical label used for skimming the layout of the page. If you want your users to be able to quickly find the element on a page that's important to them, give it a big fat text label. I sometimes give advice to the web editor at a consumer magazine-- their body text is small, tightly spaced, and low contrast. As a result their average time-on-page and bounce rates are quite depressing. Unfortunately, as is the case in many large orgs, making the content (remember, they are in the content business) more accessible to the site's visitors is not necessarily high on the larger organization's priority list (they seem to only be interested in pageviews, thus boosting their ad inventory so they can qualify for larger ad networks).