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Stop Using Small Font Sizes

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Re: Stop Using Small Font Sizes

#91

Post by DanBC »

dredmorbius wrote: post #82
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…

Readability is useful, though it's not painless to use on most websites. I've said it before and I'll say it again: one of the pleasant surprises of seeing TBL's original WWW documentation posted to HN last year was how readable plain, unstyled HTML markup is. It's almost as if we have a need for two platforms: an unstyled user HTML reader for long-form works, and an HTML+Javascript applications platform for interact…

> one of the pleasant surprises of seeing TBL's original WWW documentation posted to HN last year was how readable plain, unstyled HTML markup is.

And readable on any computer, with any OS, with any browser, whether it's going to a screen or a printer or a speaker.

It is baffling why text heavy sites (where the product is the text) get display of text so wrong.

Re: Stop Using Small Font Sizes

#92

Post by motters »

Couldn't agree more. It's a trend which I've also been noticing - i.e. tiny text or tiny light grey text on a white background. A few CTRL-+'s fix the problem, but I shouldn't really need to do that in the first place.

Re: Stop Using Small Font Sizes

#93

Post by znowi »

Quite otherwise, I dislike the trend of large font sizes with huge line heights. But is it really an issue today when you can easily zoom in or out to your preferable size on practically any browser/device?

Re: Stop Using Small Font Sizes

#94

Post by venus »

DanBC wrote: post #86
georgemcbay wrote: post #3

I don't mind small font sizes as long as you don't do anything to break zoom in the browser. What is killing me a lot more lately is the trend towards extremely low contrast sites, like white backgrounds with almost-white text. This is starting to be everywhere recently and it is horrible. I'm sure that design looks great on your Pantone-calibrated monitor, designer, but on mine I can barely even see there are words…

I agree that low contrast sucks. I also agree that breaking zoom is a silly thing for designers to do. But small font sizes, and expecting the average user to know that they can zoom, is wrong. All three are symptoms of a bigger problem - some designers are either ignorant about usable design, or just don't care about a significant portion of users.

> expecting the average user to know that they can zoom

I'm all for never overestimating the technical literacy of one's users, but .. really? The average person doesn't even know they CAN zoom? That seems an "ignoratum too far", like not knowing they can alter the volume on their stereo.

Touch screen devices make it ridiculously easy, too. Surely the average user has worked out by now that they can change the size of a web site they are viewing.

Re: Stop Using Small Font Sizes

#95

Post by DanBC »

venus wrote: post #94
DanBC wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree that low contrast sucks. I also agree that breaking zoom is a silly thing for designers to do. But small font sizes, and expecting the average user to know that they can zoom, is wrong. All three are symptoms of a bigger problem - some designers are either ignorant about usable design, or just don't care about a significant portion of users.

> expecting the average user to know that they can zoom I'm all for never overestimating the technical literacy of one's users, but .. really? The average person doesn't even know they CAN zoom? That seems an "ignoratum too far", like not knowing they can alter the volume on their stereo. Touch screen devices make it ridiculously easy, too. Surely the average user has worked out by now that they can change the size o…

Maybe on tablets and smart phones most people know they can zoom.

I strongly believe, but have nothing to support it, that most people don't know they can zoom their browsers.

Re: Stop Using Small Font Sizes

#96

Post by aw3c2 »

simcop2387 wrote: post #37

This is one of the reasons that I can't leave firefox. It's got a really nice feature in the Advanced fonts & colors configuration that lets you set a minimum font size. These days I keep it set to 12pt so that sites can't start putting 2-3pt fonts on there.

Opera has that too.

Re: Stop Using Small Font Sizes

#97

Post by jakub_g »

DanBC wrote: post #87
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…

This blog is calling for all sites to not set a font size, and then adjust everything relative to the base. That would allow you to set your preferred "not huge" default font size and have it work everywhere, and it would allow me to set my "huge" default and also have it work everywhere. At the moment I have to zoom[1] in lots of websites while you have to zoom out others. [1] And I strongly preferred "zoom just the…

"Zoom text only" works in Firefox (at least under Windows). Tick "View > Zoom > Zoom Text Only". AFAIK Firefox is the only browser that supports this. Then any zooming will be text-only zooming.

Re: Stop Using Small Font Sizes

#99

Post by Fargren »

coldtea wrote: post #64
martinced wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Strong point you're making here. Pantone-calibrated monitors only make sense when you'll be doing actual printing. A webdesigner using Pantone shades for a website is just being a delusional fool.

With the quality of the monitors nowadays, and standard profiles, it's not that far off. We're not in the nineties, monitor technology wise.

I assume you live in Europe, the USA or maybe Canada. In much of the world, people are still using CRTs or ten-year-old LCDs in large amounts.

Re: Stop Using Small Font Sizes

#100

Post by nXqd »

I totally agree but this kind of post makes no sense because they may not change to do anything about it. I personally use Clearly from Evernote for the old new site and the content is much easier and joyful to read :)
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