CSS and readable fonts?
I am using CSS to layout a page. I want to make sure the text is easily readable. This is an informational content site.
It has quite a bit of text and I want to make sure it is easy on the eyes. Right now I have a lot of text set Arial.
What do you all recommend and should I set the CSS to more than one font? arial, times, etc?
Thanks for any advice
necrotic posted this at 23:18 — 2nd July 2003.
He has: 296 posts
Joined: May 2002
Well, you should deffinetly set a generic font-family. Times is Serif and Arial is Sans-Serif. I use this usually:
font-family: Verdana, Helvetica, Sans Serif' at a size of around 13px or 14px. Its easy to read and looks great.[James Logsdon]
doublehelix posted this at 23:46 — 2nd July 2003.
They have: 117 posts
Joined: Feb 2002
You should use relative rather than absolute font sizes. Vision-impared people can get screwed up pages otherwise.
I find that bumping the line spacing up to about 120% or 130% helps readability a lot.
cgchris99 posted this at 02:08 — 3rd July 2003.
They have: 21 posts
Joined: Mar 2001
I give those sizes a try.
On the visually impared....not sure it is about this one.
With my site content, it would be like someone who is visually impared reading about learning to drive a car.
Megan posted this at 13:15 — 3rd July 2003.
She has: 11,421 posts
Joined: Jun 1999
You never know. Some people just like to see larger font sizes, especially those who are past middle age and may have poor short range vision but good long range vision (to drive). Using percentage font sizes is easier than you'd think.
Either that or you could use a style sheet switcher and allow people to change the font sizes that way.
Megan
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sitebasics posted this at 11:14 — 7th July 2003.
They have: 4 posts
Joined: Jul 2003
If you want to use CSS and make your fonts resizeable, use em instead of pt or px for the font setting. px and pt are persnickety, that way. I had to fiddle with them a bit, to get them to come out the way I want, but it's worth the effort -- accessibility issues are getting big, these days, and in the U.K., anyway, there's legislation mandating accessible sites. Check out diveintoaccessibility.org for more info -- it's also an entertaining read.
Kay Stoner
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www.sitebasics.net
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