5 ms·

For some reason, font sizes have shot through the roof in the past few years. Medium is one of the biggest offenders. You get maybe 2-3 paragraphs per page now,

For some reason, font sizes have shot through the roof in the past few years. Medium is one of the biggest offenders. You get maybe 2-3 paragraphs per page now, when entire articles would fit on a single screen page with normal-sized fonts.

beat 8y ago
I'm in favor of this. My eyes aren't particularly bad, but I have to use reading glasses in order to read most computer text, and some can get really difficult. Larger fonts are better even for my bad-like-most-other-people-my-age eyes. The tiny text I would have found fine 20 years ago is painful now.
- craftyguy 8y ago
  There's an easy fix for folks like yourself: most (all?) modern browsers support setting a minimum font size. Jack that up way into the double digits, and stop justifying ridiculously large font sizes for everyone.
  - beat 8y ago
    Sure. Explain that to my mother.
    - craftyguy 8y ago
      Most operating systems have accessibility options to help with that. Consider helping your mother to use those, they exist for a reason. Punishing everyone just because a few folks need help is not the answer.
      - beat 8y ago
        It's not punishing. It's inconveniencing at best. But flip the logic. Your inaccessible site, due to tiny unreadable fonts, is punishing everyone whose eyes aren't as good as yours, which is a lot of people.
        petee 8y ago
        Or just stick to the basic logic: you can increase tiny fonts, where as on most sites now I can't shrink them. So it is punishing. Your mother is inconvenienced, we are punished. She only has to adjust one setting, where as I get no option. And nobody is talking about tiny unreadable fonts, we're talking normal verses gigantic. If she can't read the normal OS font size, shes the problem and not the rest of us.
  - jmulho 8y ago
    How about you set maximum font size in your browser? That would be a much better plan. See what I mean?
    - craftyguy 8y ago
      > That would be a much better plan. See what I mean? No, because there are cases where having large fonts makes sense (e.g. <h1> for article titles, etc) while preserving the ability to display smaller fonts than that (e.g. for article content).
      - beat 8y ago
        ctrl-shift-minus in your browser. Make the font as tiny as you like, if it bothers you.
        petee 8y ago
        Conversely, you could just ctrl-shift-plus and make the text as readable as you like, since it bothers you and stop justifying the rest of us having to jump through hoops.
        jmulho 8y ago
        Who should have to jump through hoops, the person who cannot read text that is too small, or the person who's sensibilities are offended by text that is too large?
Tomte 8y ago
People started to listen to typographers. It's a good thing.
- msla 8y ago
  Yep. That's also how we got oceans of empty, wasted space on each side, necessitating scrolling. Skimming? Since when does a literate person skim? Just read it, you lazy so-and-so, like you just read a book! A book with gigantic margins, like all books ever! /s
thatcat 8y ago
Not to mention the absurd margins that are nearly the width of the text itself.
- jacobolus 8y ago
  https://practicaltypography.com/line-length.html https://practicaltypography.com/line-length.html
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
canadianwriter 8y ago
It massively increases readability.
ergothus 8y ago
This is compensating for the fact that font sizes dropped through the floor for years. I recall being told years ago that 16pt font was the desire, but actually most sites were using a LOT of 12 pt (or equivalently close). I even recall reading that, actually, 16pt is not necessarily large enough for easy comprehension of the average reader. In the past decade designers/PMs have started to figure out that users don't read, so they aren't trying to wedge as much text in. Though I'm no fan of some iOS interface, I credit Apple with getting the concept of legible text into mainstream design thought. As far as Medium et al goes - I think the idea there is not so much the font size as not wanting to show you more than 2-3 paragraphs, lest you get a "wall of text" opinion and not read any of it.
paulie_a 8y ago
This is why I disable custom fonts and limit the range in size from 9-13 everywhere. I have a mono and a regular font allowed. I've been doing that for at least a decade.

beat 8y ago

I'm in favor of this. My eyes aren't particularly bad, but I have to use reading glasses in order to read most computer text, and some can get really difficult. Larger fonts are better even for my bad-like-most-other-people-my-age eyes. The tiny text I would have found fine 20 years ago is painful now.

craftyguy 8y ago
There's an easy fix for folks like yourself: most (all?) modern browsers support setting a minimum font size. Jack that up way into the double digits, and stop justifying ridiculously large font sizes for everyone.
- beat 8y ago
  Sure. Explain that to my mother.
  - craftyguy 8y ago
    Most operating systems have accessibility options to help with that. Consider helping your mother to use those, they exist for a reason. Punishing everyone just because a few folks need help is not the answer.
    - beat 8y ago
      It's not punishing. It's inconveniencing at best. But flip the logic. Your inaccessible site, due to tiny unreadable fonts, is punishing everyone whose eyes aren't as good as yours, which is a lot of people.
      - petee 8y ago
        Or just stick to the basic logic: you can increase tiny fonts, where as on most sites now I can't shrink them. So it is punishing. Your mother is inconvenienced, we are punished. She only has to adjust one setting, where as I get no option. And nobody is talking about tiny unreadable fonts, we're talking normal verses gigantic. If she can't read the normal OS font size, shes the problem and not the rest of us.
- jmulho 8y ago
  How about you set maximum font size in your browser? That would be a much better plan. See what I mean?
  - craftyguy 8y ago
    > That would be a much better plan. See what I mean? No, because there are cases where having large fonts makes sense (e.g. <h1> for article titles, etc) while preserving the ability to display smaller fonts than that (e.g. for article content).
    - beat 8y ago
      ctrl-shift-minus in your browser. Make the font as tiny as you like, if it bothers you.
      - petee 8y ago
        Conversely, you could just ctrl-shift-plus and make the text as readable as you like, since it bothers you and stop justifying the rest of us having to jump through hoops.
        jmulho 8y ago
        Who should have to jump through hoops, the person who cannot read text that is too small, or the person who's sensibilities are offended by text that is too large?

Tomte 8y ago

People started to listen to typographers. It's a good thing.

msla 8y ago
Yep. That's also how we got oceans of empty, wasted space on each side, necessitating scrolling. Skimming? Since when does a literate person skim? Just read it, you lazy so-and-so, like you just read a book! A book with gigantic margins, like all books ever! /s

thatcat 8y ago

Not to mention the absurd margins that are nearly the width of the text itself.

jacobolus 8y ago
https://practicaltypography.com/line-length.html https://practicaltypography.com/line-length.html

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

canadianwriter 8y ago

It massively increases readability.

ergothus 8y ago

This is compensating for the fact that font sizes dropped through the floor for years. I recall being told years ago that 16pt font was the desire, but actually most sites were using a LOT of 12 pt (or equivalently close). I even recall reading that, actually, 16pt is not necessarily large enough for easy comprehension of the average reader. In the past decade designers/PMs have started to figure out that users don't read, so they aren't trying to wedge as much text in. Though I'm no fan of some iOS interface, I credit Apple with getting the concept of legible text into mainstream design thought. As far as Medium et al goes - I think the idea there is not so much the font size as not wanting to show you more than 2-3 paragraphs, lest you get a "wall of text" opinion and not read any of it.

paulie_a 8y ago

This is why I disable custom fonts and limit the range in size from 9-13 everywhere. I have a mono and a regular font allowed. I've been doing that for at least a decade.