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

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

#71

Post by dextorious »

wladimir wrote: post #52
dextorious wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unfortunately we can't. Maybe for copy text it's ok, but not for other page elements, ones that we want to align in a specific way to bitmap images, no. The page-zoom style resizing is our best bet --it's the "resolution independent" way to have your pixels and eat them too. Now, if we could provide bitmap assets that could be zoomed in the same way, instead of just showing bigger but more pixelated (as we can in app…

Now, if we could provide bitmap assets that could be zoomed in the same way The most common way (used for icons) is to provide multiple bitmaps and load the right one depending on screen DPI. You can do this on your site too. And there's of course vector graphics (SVG), if you don't mind some extra processing on the client for rendering...

Yes, you could provide multiple bitmaps in a website now, but in a convoluted way (with some custom javascript checking for resize events etc). In the icons case, it happens automatically.

As for SVG, client rendering time would be insignificant for most case (for a desktop machine at least, they have CPU to spare). But currently used IE version (> 6) for one don't support SVG. And the main problem are bitmap assets such as photographs. Those cannot be done as vectors.

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

#72

Post by danso »

michaeledge wrote: post #3

Personally I'm a fan of bigger font sizes. Interesting though that Facebook actually reduced their body copy down to 11px, and apparently they are doing pretty well ;)

Facebook also has a lot more elements (basically, images) to deal with than an average website with significant lengths of (narrative) body text.

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

#73

Post by prof_hobart »

km3k wrote: post #28

Maybe I'm just different, but I like smaller font sizes. It makes it easier to take in more text quicker and do it with less scrolling. I am 26 though. I'll probably change that opinion when I'm 40. I think having the browser zoomed out one level looks best to me on some sites.

I'm 41 and I've not changed my mind yet. But I guess I've been lucky with my eyesight so far.

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

#74

Post by lukeschlather »

tomkinstinch wrote: post #43
michaeledge wrote: post #3

Personally I'm a fan of bigger font sizes. Interesting though that Facebook actually reduced their body copy down to 11px, and apparently they are doing pretty well ;)

Does the median Facebook user have younger eyes than the rest of the web? A counterpoint: NYTimes.com sets their article paragraph font size at 1.5em (with a roughly equal line height).

I'm 24 and I still even zoom NYT (though that may be just so that the article fills my view.)

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

#78

Post by Thrymr »

ugh wrote: post #66
Thrymr wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can we get over specifying text size by pixels already? You don't know what DPI monitor I will have when I look at your pages.

What’s the alternative? I know of no PPI-aware way of specifying font size.

Display PostScript - circa 1987 (thanks, Steve Jobs).

I know there isn't a good current alternative in the web world, but shouldn't it be a goal to not have to specify pixels anymore? Obviously mobile browsers already largely ignore/change pixel font sizes.

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

#79

Post by ugh »

Thrymr wrote: post #78
ugh wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What’s the alternative? I know of no PPI-aware way of specifying font size.

Display PostScript - circa 1987 (thanks, Steve Jobs). I know there isn't a good current alternative in the web world, but shouldn't it be a goal to not have to specify pixels anymore? Obviously mobile browsers already largely ignore/change pixel font sizes.

It’s a valuable goal but just that. A goal. It’s necessary to be pragmatic in the meantime. No point in dreaming.

(If you didn’t notice, we are talking about the web here.)

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

#80

Post by Chris_Newton »

blahedo wrote: post #70
Chris_Newton wrote: post #42

This is an important issue to consider, but talking about "pixels" alone doesn't get us far in this context. For one thing, different fonts have different design characteristics. In particular, the x-height of one sensible body font at a nominal 16px could easily be 50% more than the x-height of another. Sadly, while CSS lets us specify a stack of fonts to try, it doesn't yet let us specify a different size to go wit…

> For another thing, these days pixel densities can vary by at least a factor of 3 between devices. It pains me to point this out, but the solution to this particular problem is that CSS has redefined what "pixel" means, or rather, they've made "px" stand for something slightly different. Specifically, the "px" specifier now is a scaled length unit, and corresponds to whatever length subtends the same arc in a user's…

Yes, CSS has an unhelpful definition of pixels, which AFAICS is almost universally ignored. No doubt it was well-intentioned, but in the real world, pixels have fixed sizes and display devices do not have infinite resolutions. The difference between professional quality web design and an amateurish mess can be as simple as paying attention to the real pixel grid that your beautiful vector icon/font/whatever will be drawn on and shifting/hinting/whatever accordingly.

Given that CSS also recognises length units such as pt, which make far more sense if you really want to specify a physical size for something like a font, distorting the meaning of "pixel" doesn't seem very useful. It's a little like idealised fluid layouts, which quickly gave way to the practical benefits of more controlled layouts and more recently to responsive designs that are specifically tailored to the strengths and weaknesses of different browsing environments. Good design often requires an element of precision, which you simply can't specify if browsers keep moving the goalposts.

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