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I agree with the article headline, but font color is only a small part of it. What makes Web page unreadable? > Constantly shifting color contrast of text blo
by pcurve 10y ago
I agree with the article headline, but font color is only a small part of it.
What makes Web page unreadable?
> Constantly shifting color contrast of text blocks. Page starts with dark on light, then shifts to light on dark as you scroll down, then shifts back. You can literally feel your pupil dilating and undilating.
> Massive font, especially serif like the one you see on the author's page. https://backchannel.com/how-the-web-became-unreadable-a781ddc711b6#.hax2uko6y https://backchannel.com/how-the-web-became-unreadable-a781dd...
> Acres of poorly laid out photos and poorly aligned text with several different font sizes, type face, and weight. theverge.com home page being one of them.
- gnicholasgreen 10y agoI understand that we are discussing readability here, with 'most readable' being the general consensus in the comments as being synonymous with 'better.' That said, I see readability as something that is part of a greater equation. Take your last example of the Verge homepage. Often designs like this are intentionally designed to throw the viewer out of the flow of easy information consumption and disrupt your sense of hierarchy on the page. They are trying to get you to snack on different sections, not read left-right, top-bottom. This sense of confusion also serves to hide the fact that they place the same article multiple times on the same page, in different contexts. This gives the reader the sense that there have a lot of content and a lot going on. My point is that readablility is a sliding scale that can be used as a tool to varying effect.