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Blog Legibility Makeover In 5 Steps

Wednesday, July 11th, 2007 at 8:00 am

Do people complain that their eyes hurt after reading your blog? Well, even if they don’t, it may be wise to give your blog a legibility makeover. Here are some ideas that will make reading your blog even more of a pleasure than it already is:

Contrast
Most blogging platforms allow you to choose templates and colours for the presentation of your blog.
The problem is that the brightness of display varies from one person’s computer monitor to the next. It is important to make sure that there is enough contrast between the colour of your text and that of your background. For example, light grey text on a dark grey background may not be the best idea, especially when viewed on a darker monitor. If you opt for a graphic background, like a picture - or worse, an animated image - this makes legibility much more of a challenge. If it is difficult to read your text over the graphics of your background, you may have to bid that cute/hot/funny/funky picture farewell and use a plain background instead.
Colour
So what colour should your blog be? Black on white may be the most functional, but that’s boring, right? White text on a black background may also not be the answer, since the stark contrast between the overwhelming black background and the white text plays a trick on the eye and gives the text a fuzzy appearance.
Web 2.0 seems to be about just the right mix of “muted” and “bold” colours. Take a look at what colours some of the most popular websites are using and come up with your own special mix. Warm, off-white background colours are definitely easier on the eye than white and black. Colourlovers offers some inspiring palettes.
Size
This is simple: if your text is too small, it’s difficult to read. Ask yourself the question, “would my granny be able to read this?” If your answer is anything less than a resounding “yes”, it may be time to bump up the size of that text! Depending on the font you use, anything between 9 and 12 points is usually acceptable. Smaller than 9 is usually too small and bigger than 12 may be overkill, after all, big clumsy text just doesn’t look good either.
Font
Firstly, it is important to understand that text on the internet can only be displayed in fonts that are installed on the computer of the user (the person visiting your blog). Unfortunately, this means that if you want to be sure that most people will see your text in the font you choose, you are limited to a handful of commonly available fonts.
The next important choice to make is between serif and sans-serif. If you don’t know the difference between serif and sans-serif, this picture will help.

It is generally agreed that serif fonts are more suitable for printed text, than for web. Serifs clutter the appearance of text online due to the relatively low resolution of monitors, so sans-serif is often used for blogs. Verdana is a popular choice for blogging since it remains legible, even at a small size.
Here are a few fonts that are fairly safe to use since they come standard with most computer systems:
Serif:
- Times
- Georgia
- Courier
Sans-serif:
- Arial
- Verdana
- Tahoma
Format
Breaking your text up into short, logical paragraphs goes a long way to making your text more readable. A huge block of text with no breaks could discourage even the most enthusiastic of blog readers! Use sub-headings, pull quotes, blurbs and lists to make your text more reader friendly. Digital Web Magazine has an interesting article on formatting your copy. Their advice:

Assign headlines to each chunk of related copy. Headlines are the page scanner’s best friend; they make it easy to decide which sections to read and which can be skipped.

Left-aligned sentence case is most readable. Writing in only UPPERCASE or only lowercase makes it difficult for the reader to see where one sentence ends and the next begins.

Always keep in mind that most internet users are busy and don’t like spending a lot of time reading text. They generally scan through pages fairly quickly and if something causes them difficulty, they just go on to the next website. Usability expert Jakob Nielsen says this:

Most people just want to get in, get it and get out, for them the web is not a goal in itself. It is a tool.

Keep your readers happy - a happy reader is a loyal reader.

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