4 ms·

You forgot "microscopic font size". Why is this even a thing? Who thought microscopic text was attractive? It's such a turn off. I instantly close a page if I

You forgot "microscopic font size". Why is this even a thing? Who thought microscopic text was attractive? It's such a turn off. I instantly close a page if I have to strain my eyes to read the text.

naradaellis 13y ago
Ctrl-scroll wheel. I used to only do it with uncomfortably small text, but now I just do it on probably 50+% of sites, even if I could read it without zooming. It just feels nice. Puts all that horizontal whitespace on a widescreen monitor to use.
hnha 13y ago
"Gigantic font size" is just as bad. If I can only see 10 lines on my monitor in a size that would fit a book for toddlers, my close tab reflex is quick.
- nknighthb 13y ago
  I'd be perfectly happy if everybody defaulted to 12pt.
  - sesqu 13y ago
    When I googled around for recommendations, 12pt was the most common, but some went as high as 16pt. Personally, I prefer 14pt, leaving 12pt only for good font and layout pages.
lelandbatey 13y ago
Maybe it's just me, but I pretty much never see that. Are there any common examples? Though I do notice when text is well laid out. A nicely chosen font, a page that's comfortably wide-but-not-to-wide, good spacing and thought out contrast. As well, when there's nothing but the text (or as little else as possible) it's just perfect. I've really tried to do that with my own projects like http://xwl.me http://xwl.me . I really just wanted the nicest reading experience for random [0]things that I feel like writing and posting on the web. Btw, I'd actually love it if there's more I can do for readability. I really just want this to be as easy on my eyes as possible, but I'm often not the best judge of that. [0] - http://xwl.me/md/b4aa7u4hof178z2 http://xwl.me/md/b4aa7u4hof178z2
- jwdunne 13y ago
  The only example I can think of is Facebook comments. I often zoom in on Facebook and leave it that way. I have actually seen this quite a lot amongst less popular websites, such as websites for local dental practices. I work for a marketing company in the UK and I've even seen our own contracted designer do this. If I don't do it myself, I'm often asked by the client to increase the font size. It's quite pervasive. xwl.me is readable and I like how it's very simple too. I might tint the background colour but not so much that it kills contrast between the BG and text. I notice my eyes feel scorched using editors with pure white BGs after some time and I'm not surprised; #fff creates the brightest light source for a monitor and it's never pleasant looking directly at a light or, more extreme, the sun.
- SiVal 13y ago
  I use a Firefox extension called "NoSquint" on my Retina MacBook Pro and set the default page size to 140%, saving me the trouble of hitting cmd-+ a couple of times each time I go to a new website. That seems to result in a roughly balanced number of pages that are too small and pages that are too large. If I always wore my reading glasses, which I usually don't, I would probably set this to 120%. With reading glasses, my vision on this retina display is razor sharp, and I still think the text on most web pages is too small for maximum comfort.
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
- adregan 13y ago
  If you are really looking for some readability tips, might I suggest one? Via the incredibly influential, albeit dry, _The Elements of Typographic Style_ by Robert Bringhurst[1] concerning the "comfortable measure," which I find to be the most important aspect of readable text: > Anything from 45 to 75 characters is widely regarded as a satisfactory > length of line for a single-column page set in a serifed text face in a text size. > The 66-character line (counting both letters and spaces) is widely regarded as ideal. The measure on your site is around 99 characters and that's a bit large. The best way I've found to work on the character length involves a dead simple tip I appropriated from Trent Walton[2]. If you add an asterisk at the 66 character of a line, you can easily manipulate the font-size up and down (I prefer percentages on the body element and ems on the individual elements, and then fuss with the single percentage) until you achieve an appealing measure. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Elements_of_Typographic_Style http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Elements_of_Typographic_Sty... [2]http://trentwalton.com/ http://trentwalton.com/
radicalbyte 13y ago
I only really see this on sites that have been designed for 1280x800, which then look tiny on my 1920x1200 screen.

You forgot "microscopic font size". Why is this even a thing? Who thought microscopic text was attractive? It's such a turn off. I instantly close a page if I have to strain my eyes to read the text.

naradaellis 13y ago

Ctrl-scroll wheel. I used to only do it with uncomfortably small text, but now I just do it on probably 50+% of sites, even if I could read it without zooming. It just feels nice. Puts all that horizontal whitespace on a widescreen monitor to use.

hnha 13y ago

"Gigantic font size" is just as bad. If I can only see 10 lines on my monitor in a size that would fit a book for toddlers, my close tab reflex is quick.

nknighthb 13y ago
I'd be perfectly happy if everybody defaulted to 12pt.
- sesqu 13y ago
  When I googled around for recommendations, 12pt was the most common, but some went as high as 16pt. Personally, I prefer 14pt, leaving 12pt only for good font and layout pages.

lelandbatey 13y ago

Maybe it's just me, but I pretty much never see that. Are there any common examples? Though I do notice when text is well laid out. A nicely chosen font, a page that's comfortably wide-but-not-to-wide, good spacing and thought out contrast. As well, when there's nothing but the text (or as little else as possible) it's just perfect. I've really tried to do that with my own projects like http://xwl.me http://xwl.me . I really just wanted the nicest reading experience for random [0]things that I feel like writing and posting on the web. Btw, I'd actually love it if there's more I can do for readability. I really just want this to be as easy on my eyes as possible, but I'm often not the best judge of that. [0] - http://xwl.me/md/b4aa7u4hof178z2 http://xwl.me/md/b4aa7u4hof178z2

jwdunne 13y ago
The only example I can think of is Facebook comments. I often zoom in on Facebook and leave it that way. I have actually seen this quite a lot amongst less popular websites, such as websites for local dental practices. I work for a marketing company in the UK and I've even seen our own contracted designer do this. If I don't do it myself, I'm often asked by the client to increase the font size. It's quite pervasive. xwl.me is readable and I like how it's very simple too. I might tint the background colour but not so much that it kills contrast between the BG and text. I notice my eyes feel scorched using editors with pure white BGs after some time and I'm not surprised; #fff creates the brightest light source for a monitor and it's never pleasant looking directly at a light or, more extreme, the sun.
SiVal 13y ago
I use a Firefox extension called "NoSquint" on my Retina MacBook Pro and set the default page size to 140%, saving me the trouble of hitting cmd-+ a couple of times each time I go to a new website. That seems to result in a roughly balanced number of pages that are too small and pages that are too large. If I always wore my reading glasses, which I usually don't, I would probably set this to 120%. With reading glasses, my vision on this retina display is razor sharp, and I still think the text on most web pages is too small for maximum comfort.
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
adregan 13y ago
If you are really looking for some readability tips, might I suggest one? Via the incredibly influential, albeit dry, _The Elements of Typographic Style_ by Robert Bringhurst[1] concerning the "comfortable measure," which I find to be the most important aspect of readable text: > Anything from 45 to 75 characters is widely regarded as a satisfactory > length of line for a single-column page set in a serifed text face in a text size. > The 66-character line (counting both letters and spaces) is widely regarded as ideal. The measure on your site is around 99 characters and that's a bit large. The best way I've found to work on the character length involves a dead simple tip I appropriated from Trent Walton[2]. If you add an asterisk at the 66 character of a line, you can easily manipulate the font-size up and down (I prefer percentages on the body element and ems on the individual elements, and then fuss with the single percentage) until you achieve an appealing measure. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Elements_of_Typographic_Style http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Elements_of_Typographic_Sty... [2]http://trentwalton.com/ http://trentwalton.com/

radicalbyte 13y ago

I only really see this on sites that have been designed for 1280x800, which then look tiny on my 1920x1200 screen.