Make your text readable

home services portfolio intranet ideas contact us

Idea Archives

July 2004
August 2004
September 2004
October 2004
November 2004
December 2004
January 2005
February 2005
March 2005
April 2005
July 2005
November 2005
December 2005
January 2006
February 2006
April 2006
May 2006
July 2006
October 2006
November 2006

Previous Posts

Make your text readable

Tuesday, December 13, 2005

What is it with microscopic type on web sites? Is it cool to be
illegible? Does the designer hate the over-40 crowd? Are bigger fonts
more expensive?

Here are some guidelines for readable text on your intranet:

Use high-contrast colors. Black on white is the best.
Use 12-point type for optimal reading speed. For the small print, 10-point should be the minimum size.
Align left. Justified text destroys word spacing; right-aligned slows the eye.
On-screen, there is no difference in reading speed between serif and sans-serif. However, most users prefer sans-serif.

About the Author

I'm Chris McGrath, an intranet consultant in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. I've been working on intranets since 1997, and on plain ol' web sites for even longer. I run One Intranets, the firm that co-created ThoughtFarmer -- an enterprise collaboration platform for Windows-based intranets.