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16 pixels For Body Copy. Anything Less Is A Costly Mistake

smashingmagazine.com

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Re: 16 pixels For Body Copy. Anything Less Is A Costly Mistake

#111

Post by pbhjpbhj »

rlander wrote: post #106
SimonPStevens wrote: post #17

On the surface the statements seems to make sense and the arguments are well put across, but unless someone actually A/B tests it and proves that it makes a difference to readership, or conversions (or whatever your goal is) then it's currently just unsubstantiated theory.

One little known tip that I've been using for years to reduce bounce rates is to increase the text size by a few pixels. I've successfully reduced the bounce rates on a few sites with that hack alone. On others it made little difference. I guess the older the audience, the more pronounced the effect.

>I guess the older the audience, the more pronounced the effect. //

Was this a tested hypothesis or is it literally a guess?

Re: 16 pixels For Body Copy. Anything Less Is A Costly Mistake

#112

Post by keithpeter »

sunkencity wrote: post #30
Flenser wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I can read a full line in 3 focus movements I doubt it: The distance the eye moves in each saccade (or short rapid movement) is between 1 and 20 characters with the average being 7–9 characters. Thus, the most impressive fact about fixations (the point at which a saccade jumps to) and saccades is that there is considerable variability not only between readers, but for the same person reading a single passage of tex…

I've trained specifically on this by reading thick books of prose like Ulysses,Dhalgren,Gravitys Rainbow etc. where the context is more important than the specific meaning of a sentence, the goal is to try to read faster than I can think, and then parse the information when I have more context. It's also possible to read too fast for any comprehension at all, and then slow down a little and take advantage of speed-bl…

My own reading of Joyce is mediated through Paddy's Irish, Schubert (Winterreise), and Traviata (Bloom's solo). Music preferably from acoustic recordings.

Seriously, is there a distinction to be made between reading for facts/information (skim, scan, locate, focus) and reading as art (micro scale language and music in the voice, macro scale navigation of the plot)?

Does this distinction translate onto the Web? Is there a literary role for hypertext (pace Mark Bernstein)?

Re: 16 pixels For Body Copy. Anything Less Is A Costly Mistake

#113

Post by grannyg00se »

It's just as easy to hit [ CTRL + ] as it is to hit backspace. If you are worried about your users' ability or knowledge, then you can simply include a link that says "adjust text size up / down" and let them click that to get the desired effect. Browsers allow users to customize the font for a reason. It's impossible to claim a default size that everyone is going to like.

Re: 16 pixels For Body Copy. Anything Less Is A Costly Mistake

#114

Post by ekanes »

patio11 wrote: post #98
SimonPStevens wrote: post #17

On the surface the statements seems to make sense and the arguments are well put across, but unless someone actually A/B tests it and proves that it makes a difference to readership, or conversions (or whatever your goal is) then it's currently just unsubstantiated theory.

5 points of karma says null result, but I'll have at least one anecdotal data point for you in a few days.

Thanks. Please post results to HN, we'd love to see 'em!

Re: 16 pixels For Body Copy. Anything Less Is A Costly Mistake

#115

Post by frankiejr »

mkr-hn wrote: post #62
frankiejr wrote: post #12

Working closely with designers and observing client requests over the past decade or so, I've seen another pattern that also leads to the "small type" problem: Client requests to get as much above the fold as possible. Granted, the majority of the projects I've worked on in the past four or five years have been very large organizations. When client committees make decisions, it's much harder to teach them or even ste…

I think if you need to shrink things to fit it above the fold, it's time to reconsider what you're putting there. I've never had trouble fitting everything important comfortably above the fold, but I'm only working with my own projects.

I absolutely agree. I also agree with the theory that you should teach, coach and influence your clients with what your team has learned over the course of your career.

The clients I mentioned are organizations with thousands of employees, and (at the very least) dozens of very large departments. Their decisions are always made by committees made up by representatives from these departments, and they all want equal or more attention. You just can't teach clients like that and stay within a tasteful budget. All you can do is creatively mitigate.

It's not all bad, though. It's just another puzzle to solve, only this time the solution isn't in code.

(Sorry for straying so far off topic from the original article)

Re: 16 pixels For Body Copy. Anything Less Is A Costly Mistake

#116

Post by rlander »

pbhjpbhj wrote: post #111
rlander wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One little known tip that I've been using for years to reduce bounce rates is to increase the text size by a few pixels. I've successfully reduced the bounce rates on a few sites with that hack alone. On others it made little difference. I guess the older the audience, the more pronounced the effect.

> I guess the older the audience, the more pronounced the effect. // Was this a tested hypothesis or is it literally a guess?

Literally a guess. I've worked with very few sites that target older consumers, so my data points are limited, but in one of these the bounce rate dropped by more than 20% (home decor industry).

Unlike more recent experimentations, I did not conduct a formal AB/multivariate test, but the font size had been the only internal change at the time. Also, I have no idea whether these lower bounce rates translated into higher revenue.

Also, all of the sites mentioned above were female-oriented.

Re: 16 pixels For Body Copy. Anything Less Is A Costly Mistake

#117

Post by john_flintstone »

grannyg00se wrote: post #113

It's just as easy to hit [ CTRL + ] as it is to hit backspace. If you are worried about your users' ability or knowledge, then you can simply include a link that says "adjust text size up / down" and let them click that to get the desired effect. Browsers allow users to customize the font for a reason. It's impossible to claim a default size that everyone is going to like.

Just as most users don't know about Ctrl+, most users wouldn't know what "adjust text size up / down" meant either. My 60 year old father uses the Internet a lot, but he wouldn't be able to identify your use of the word 'text' with the words he reads on a website. Up or down to him would mean scrolling.

Re: 16 pixels For Body Copy. Anything Less Is A Costly Mistake

#120

Post by marshray »

Corrado wrote: post #10

I agree completely with this article. As I've gotten older (now 43) I have had more and more trouble reading web sites. In fact, I've noticed lately that I don't even try on some sites that have "small" fonts, I just close the tab. There are some sites that I really like and I generally depend on my browser to help me out. Chrome has a good habit of remembering my page zoom on a particular site so I don't even notice…

I'm 41 and have been experimenting with different contacts prescriptions for a couple of years to try to put this off, but I just got my first pair of reading glasses yesterday.
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