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Stop Using Small Font Sizes

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Re: Stop Using Small Font Sizes

#21

Post by pidg »

crazygringo wrote: post #16

On the other hand, don't use font sizes that are too big (I've noticed that on a number of blogs and startup sites recently). It might look great on your large iMac screen, but when I read it with an 11" MBA, it's pretty frustrating to only be able to see a handful of lines of text at the same time. Even this blog which is doing the complaining, I wish I could see more of the text at the same time. Though it's a matt…

Agreed about line height - I usually go for 1.3em. 1.5 looks disjointed to me, feeling almost like each line is its own sentence or bullet point.

Re: Stop Using Small Font Sizes

#22

Post by pmb »

bradwestness wrote: post #10

12pt Times New Roman is the standard for publishing, so that's become the go-to size for a lot of websites. It was plenty big on 800x600 displays, but I agree that it's generally too small for today's resolutions. However, the solution isn't to pick a new, slightly larger point size and just set everything to that, it's to use media queries to set an appropriate size for whatever medium the content is being displayed…

1pt is a unit of length. One point is 1/72 of an inch. It should be the same height now that it ever was, even on old monitors.

Re: Stop Using Small Font Sizes

#23

Post by tokenadult »

Some of this advice differs from the carefully thought out style advice in the HTML5 Boilerplate project,

http://html5boilerplate.com/

(which, dismayingly, is loading very slowly in Chrome just now, but loading fine in IE), the basis for my restyling my very old personal website. A line height of 1.4 is plenty large. The author is fully correct, of course, that it is best not to specify a font size at all, and especially not to specify a size that can't be resized at will be any user who happens to visit your site. Responsive Web design

http://www.seomoz.org/blog/seo-of-responsive-web-design

http://www.abookapart.com/products/responsive-web-design

is the way to go.

Re: Stop Using Small Font Sizes

#25

Post by _ZeD_ »

rurounijones wrote: post #14

huh, initially I thought "It is not THAT big of a problem" but after reading his article (easily) then trying to read an article in some of his example offenders sites...I can see his point. Consider my eyes opened... (and not squinting.)

funnily, the article itself is an "offending site": http://tinypic.com/view.php?pic=1g14rd&s=6

Re: Stop Using Small Font Sizes

#26

Post by andyharl »

dgunn wrote: post #20
CharlesW wrote: post #5

Only if you stop using fully-justified text first.

What's wrong with justified text? I prefer reading justified text.

Justified text is fine in printed material when a certain amount of control can be exercised to make sure that terrible things don't happen.

Browsers are horrible at justifying text.

Re: Stop Using Small Font Sizes

#27

Post by gurkendoktor »

pmb wrote: post #22
bradwestness wrote: post #10

12pt Times New Roman is the standard for publishing, so that's become the go-to size for a lot of websites. It was plenty big on 800x600 displays, but I agree that it's generally too small for today's resolutions. However, the solution isn't to pick a new, slightly larger point size and just set everything to that, it's to use media queries to set an appropriate size for whatever medium the content is being displayed…

1pt is a unit of length. One point is 1/72 of an inch. It should be the same height now that it ever was, even on old monitors.

My 24" screen is probably further from my face than my 15" screen used to be (not least because the 15" screen almost completely covered my desk by itself).

Re: Stop Using Small Font Sizes

#28

Post by aranjedeath »

_ZeD_ wrote: post #25
rurounijones wrote: post #14

huh, initially I thought "It is not THAT big of a problem" but after reading his article (easily) then trying to read an article in some of his example offenders sites...I can see his point. Consider my eyes opened... (and not squinting.)

funnily, the article itself is an "offending site": http://tinypic.com/view.php?pic=1g14rd&s=6

What sort of browser do you use that doesn't support anti-aliasing of fonts?

Re: Stop Using Small Font Sizes

#29

Post by bcoates »

While we're complaining, don't open sites in a new tab just for the hell of it, especially when they're intended to be something you visit then return to. I know where the middle button is.

Re: Stop Using Small Font Sizes

#30

Post by luser001 »

Hear, hear! :) I'm really happy to see this get to the front page.

But why pixels (px) and not points (pt)?

I made a site using 12pt text and it looks good everywhere (ipad, iphone, chromebook, linux, windows, mac).

I suspect 16px is going to look too small on a Retina Macbook (I don't own one, so I wouldn't know).

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