One of the many things that we observe during our detailed blog-reviews is poor display of text. We have come across many more such blogs - and websites - during Indian blogosphere surveys that we conduct for updating the Directory of Best Indian Blogs and blog-rankings. So this post specifically on display of text on websites and blogs.
When you start a blog or a website and when you tweak it, text display probably comes the last in your list of priorities. If you have a blog on Blogger or Wordpress platform, you might think that the default text scheme suits your blog and playing with it will only make it less appealing. After all, these big blogging platforms spend a lot of time and energy in creating the best in the industry. And when you think that your blog needs some change, you tend to choose from the numerous ready-made templates available on the web. When you engage a web-designer to make a website for you, you discuss background, layout, images, columns, logo, content positioning and so on but feel that the text suggested by the designer [often unmindfully and sometimes to impress you] is fine and no discussion is required on text aspects. Many superbly-crafted websites too suffer from this disregard for text – the building brick of a webpage.
Appeal and functionality should go together
Like all other elements of display, a website must have appealing text. Appeal does not mean too flowery a font or too much variation in size and color [colour]. What it means is that the text should look normal and pleasing. It should not put off the reader by its gaudiness and difficulty in reading. Real ‘beauty’ of text lies in not inviting attention but doing its job beautifully.
We always advise bloggers and web designers to care for the functionality of
all site elements, and text is no exception. Functionality, like visual appeal, depends upon many factors. The two are also very closely related.
The quality of text display depends a lot on text color, but since we’d not be able to do justice with all aspects of text display in a single post, we’ve another post on
the importance of color on blogs and websites.
Text characteristics
Font is one of the most important aspects to look at. Fonts with stylish curves, embellishments, quirky shapes, ligature, etc may look artistic but they are often less readable than simple fonts such as Arial. Too slanting a font too is not good for a website. There is another problem associated with unusual fonts: they do not render well. So, the text may not look the same as it looks on your computer and a particular browser. In some fonts, alphabets with similar shapes mix up [e.g. c and e; e and o; u and v; 3 and 8].
Text size is equally important. We have seen may websites that have good content but very small text. What purpose does the content serve if people find it difficult to read it? If your site has a lot of matter to read, do have text of 11-12 point, no less. If you need to use slanted, short or italicized text in big blocks, do raise the text size to make it properly readable.
You need to choose the size of the text of the
title with care. In a few blogs that we reviewed in detail, we found an inconspicuous title, followed by bold description and huge post-headings. On the other hand, some blogs had stuffed so big text in the title that it hung down half the screen.
Text shape and size also impact
navigation. Consider this especially in the case of sub-titles / post headings / widget titles. Maintain uniformity of text [and accompanying bullet] for similar elements.
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| Choose the right font. |
Choose the
hyper-linked text with care. The text should always make sense to the viewer and should also have direct relevance with the subject of the link. We have given below an incorrect and a correct way to place links:
incorrect:
This website contains the best blogs on India and by Indians and you can reach there by clicking
here.
correct: This website contains the
best blogs on India and by Indians.
Some text should mandatorily have hyper-link. For example, the title text. People use it to navigate to the home page from other pages. Similarly, the post heading. Widget heads in many cases need to be hyper-linked. All external links such as web-pages in the main content and blog-roll should be hyper-linked. When you break a long post with ‘jump break’, do have an expression such as ‘Read more’ and it should expand the post when clicked [as in the case of this very post].
Do not write big chunks in italics,
CAPS or slanting text. Unless it is your style, do capitalize the first letter of sentences and proper names [In the exceptional case, it needs to be uniform].
Text variation is important always and more so when your post turns big. It can be brought about by varying color, size, boldness, italicization etc.
Use a different color / bold text / italics for highlighting a point. Use quotes, line-break and italics to make direct speech distinct from narration.
Enhancing readability
