Hello all, Does anyone know why some websites use very small Arial type fonts? I asked a colleague and he said it was so as to get as much information as possible on a page. Have there been studies in this area? Thanks a lot, Rosemary ====================== Rosemary Agbonlahor Africa Regional Centre for Information Science P.O. Box 22133 6 Benue Road University of Ibadan NIGERIA ------------------------------------------ Self development demands self discipline
Arial is generally the standard online (or a similar sans-serif font) because it is easier to read than a serif font that has lots of "hooks" due to the pixel display. I'm not sure whether there is actually a purpose behind "very small" fonts, but teaching basic web design and having to explain resolution issues to my students, I would assume that screen resolution (both the designer's and the viewer's) has something to do with it. If I design in an 800x600 resultion and you view it in 1400xwhatever it is, then it's going to look tiny. Ulla -- Ulla Bunz Assistant Professor Department of Communication Rutgers University 4 Huntington Street New Brunswick, NJ 08901
I think this (using small font sizes) is really a design choice. Web design done properly (according to W3C WAI guidelines: http://w3.org/TR/WCAG10/) will ensure that there are no issues with deprecated font sizes (which render it difficult for users to control size themselves, important for those with any kind of visual impairment). Often designers want things to look good - using small, gray font, for example - that may make it difficult for people to read. I often ask my designers to think about whether their grandparents will be able to read small text used on their pages. If CSS is used then there shouldn't be any accessibility issues. Robert Rosemary Agbonlahor wrote:
Hello all,
Does anyone know why some websites use very small Arial type fonts? I asked a colleague and he said it was so as to get as much information as possible on a page. Have there been studies in this area?
Thanks a lot,
Rosemary
====================== Rosemary Agbonlahor Africa Regional Centre for Information Science P.O. Box 22133 6 Benue Road University of Ibadan NIGERIA ------------------------------------------ Self development demands self discipline _______________________________________________ The Air-l-aoir.org@listserv.aoir.org mailing list is provided by the Association of Internet Researchers http://aoir.org Subscribe, change options or unsubscribe at: http://listserv.aoir.org/listinfo.cgi/air-l-aoir.org
Join the Association of Internet Researchers: http://aoir.org/airjoin.html
Sorry I've been on the list a bit but I have to reply to this. Ultimately font size is determined by the reader (viewer), go to the Explorer Menu> View >Font size and select your font size preference. I forget what it is in Netscape, it's in Preferences ?. I leave my font sizes small when building as it is my University's preference for a standard web page. The size to the viewer is not an issue - the VIEWER can pick to go larger. Grandparents who know this leave their Explorer View font size on larger or largest. So they view every web page in a large font. They won't even SEE the small fonts you are talking about unless someone changes their settings! ;-) Cheers, Denise --- Rosemary Agbonlahor <ro.agbonlahor@arcisng.net> wrote:
Hello all,
Does anyone know why some websites use very small Arial type fonts? I asked a colleague and he said it was so as to get as much information as possible on a page. Have there been studies in this area?
Thanks a lot,
Rosemary
====================== Rosemary Agbonlahor Africa Regional Centre for Information Science P.O. Box 22133 6 Benue Road University of Ibadan NIGERIA ------------------------------------------ Self development demands self discipline _______________________________________________ The Air-l-aoir.org@listserv.aoir.org mailing list is provided by the Association of Internet Researchers http://aoir.org Subscribe, change options or unsubscribe at: http://listserv.aoir.org/listinfo.cgi/air-l-aoir.org
Join the Association of Internet Researchers: http://aoir.org/airjoin.html
===== Denise N. Rall, PhD candidate, School of Environ. Science, Southern Cross University, Lismore NSW 2480 Sustainable Forestry Mentoring Coordinator & Internet Researcher Room T2.12, +61 (0)2 6620 3577 Tuesdays or Mobile 0438 233 344 http://www.scu.edu.au/schools/rsm/staff/pages/drall/index.html
Hi, Surprising to see this lack of usability awareness here. Rosemary - the 'reason' you heard holds just about as much water as the designer who said that the small font was called 'subliminal design'. :) I'd just like to second Robert's reply, and clarify: The reasoning that Denise put forward is too often abused by designers for whom the font is a design element, rather than something that actually has to be legible and readable to their audience. The good designer will allow for good contrast, sharpness and size from the get-go. Using the small font size as a default is a good idea (particularly if you happen to know that that's your target audience's setting) - as most people don't really like to bother with such a nuisance. Imagine if you had to change your font size for every site! The reason so many sites use small fonts is mainly because it's fashionable, and looks prettier than larger fonts. Designers do, in fact, need to become more aware of how their design works with various sizes of fonts, and find attractive ways of presenting information without assuming that their entire audience has 6/6 vision, or is using IE and knows how to adjust font-sizes, etc. As someone who has taught web designers for a number of years, the main issue seems to be different ways of processing information. Designers generally think visually - i.e., composition, whole picture, balance. They have a harder time focusing on particular/logical details such as is the font readable, and does the hierarchy make sense. Teaching designers in fact involves getting them to be aware of their own info. processing biases, and how to balance their perspective. The web is hybrid. And requires us to be as well :) Heidi Dawn haLevi ................. Information and Experience Design heidi@processing.co.il
-----Original Message----- From: Denise N. Rall [mailto:denrall@yahoo.com] Sent: Sunday, January 30, 2005 5:04 AM To: air-l@listserv.aoir.org; ro.agbonlahor@arcisng.net Subject: Re: [Air-l] Web font sizes
Sorry I've been on the list a bit but I have to reply to this.
Ultimately font size is determined by the reader (viewer), go to the Explorer Menu> View >Font size and select your font size preference. I forget what it is in Netscape, it's in Preferences ?.
I leave my font sizes small when building as it is my University's preference for a standard web page. The size to the viewer is not an issue - the VIEWER can pick to go larger.
Grandparents who know this leave their Explorer View font size on larger or largest. So they view every web page in a large font. They won't even SEE the small fonts you are talking about unless someone changes their settings! ;-)
Cheers, Denise
--- Rosemary Agbonlahor <ro.agbonlahor@arcisng.net> wrote:
Hello all,
Does anyone know why some websites use very small Arial type fonts? I asked a colleague and he said it was so as to get as much information as possible on a page. Have there been studies in this area?
Thanks a lot,
Rosemary
====================== Rosemary Agbonlahor Africa Regional Centre for Information Science P.O. Box 22133 6 Benue Road University of Ibadan NIGERIA ------------------------------------------ Self development demands self discipline _______________________________________________ The Air-l-aoir.org@listserv.aoir.org mailing list is provided by the Association of Internet Researchers http://aoir.org Subscribe, change options or unsubscribe at: http://listserv.aoir.org/listinfo.cgi/air-l-aoir.org
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===== Denise N. Rall, PhD candidate, School of Environ. Science, Southern Cross University, Lismore NSW 2480 Sustainable Forestry Mentoring Coordinator & Internet Researcher Room T2.12, +61 (0)2 6620 3577 Tuesdays or Mobile 0438 233 344 http://www.scu.edu.au/schools/rsm/staff/pages/drall/index.html _______________________________________________ The Air-l-aoir.org@listserv.aoir.org mailing list is provided by the Association of Internet Researchers http://aoir.org Subscribe, change options or unsubscribe at: http://listserv.aoir.org/listinfo.cgi/air-l-aoir.org
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The reason so many sites use small fonts is mainly because it's fashionable, and looks prettier than larger fonts. Designers do, in fact, need to become more aware of how their design works with various sizes of fonts, and find attractive ways of presenting information
the thing is, most 'web designers' are ignorant of the fact that design for the web and graphic design for print are very different tasks. i tend to browse the web at 120% or so, in firefox. if i see a site where text flows over the top of images, or the layout has serious breakage at 'only' 120%, then my assumption is that the designer is trying to work with the web as if it is a print medium - one where they have control down to a single em, or where they can precisely specify colors (a la Pantone) rather than selecting combinations of the 'web safe colors'. I should mention, in relation to Denise's mention of IE's font size selection options, that I consider that functionality within IE to be terribly broken and limited. Other folks are definitely doing it better, making browsers that are more accessible. --elijah
a more likely explanation to me for most of the web isn't that the web designer is 'print' oriented, but that they are hobbyists and really don't understand the full implications of design decisions or they are css or html geeks who like to play with the wizbang aspects of css/html, on the basis that it will work say 70% of the time. however, perhaps in the field of professional web designers there is still a print culture. I seem to recall that actually there was a study on this in the late 90's, though that was a different world. On Jan 30, 2005, at 9:22 AM, elijah wright wrote:
The reason so many sites use small fonts is mainly because it's fashionable, and looks prettier than larger fonts. Designers do, in fact, need to become more aware of how their design works with various sizes of fonts, and find attractive ways of presenting information
the thing is, most 'web designers' are ignorant of the fact that design for the web and graphic design for print are very different tasks.
i tend to browse the web at 120% or so, in firefox. if i see a site where text flows over the top of images, or the layout has serious breakage at 'only' 120%, then my assumption is that the designer is trying to work with the web as if it is a print medium - one where they have control down to a single em, or where they can precisely specify colors (a la Pantone) rather than selecting combinations of the 'web safe colors'.
I should mention, in relation to Denise's mention of IE's font size selection options, that I consider that functionality within IE to be terribly broken and limited. Other folks are definitely doing it better, making browsers that are more accessible.
--elijah _______________________________________________ The Air-l-aoir.org@listserv.aoir.org mailing list is provided by the Association of Internet Researchers http://aoir.org Subscribe, change options or unsubscribe at: http://listserv.aoir.org/listinfo.cgi/air-l-aoir.org
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jeremy hunsinger jhuns@vt.edu www.cddc.vt.edu jeremy.tmttlt.com www.tmttlt.com () ascii ribbon campaign - against html mail /\ - against microsoft attachments
Hmm, I reckon it may be many things. Hobbyists I agree with especially for small business. Our research has shown that in Australia many of these get their nephew, neice or Joe Bloggs down the road to do it, because they 'muck around with computers'. Some of our IS graduating students go to web design positions and I know they have no idea of designing for print or design at all. What they learn we teach them in 12 weeks. I suspect many other institutions are the same way. I dare anyone to teach good design, JavaScript, meta-tagging, good HTML coding and the myriad of accessibility issues in that time. Many web design places have monitors far larger than what is available to the general public. And you can bet that most places don't do proper checks of their work on different size monitors and resolutions. There will be some remnants of print culture. But, I suspect not as much as you might think. Our faculty has just paid an enormous amount off money to have its website redesigned - guess what font size they used 8pt. The top level management thought it looked good because they could get more information on a page. Andrew. On 31/01/2005, at 1:31 AM, jeremy hunsinger wrote:
a more likely explanation to me for most of the web isn't that the web designer is 'print' oriented, but that they are hobbyists and really don't understand the full implications of design decisions or they are css or html geeks who like to play with the wizbang aspects of css/html, on the basis that it will work say 70% of the time. however, perhaps in the field of professional web designers there is still a print culture. I seem to recall that actually there was a study on this in the late 90's, though that was a different world. On Jan 30, 2005, at 9:22 AM, elijah wright wrote:
The reason so many sites use small fonts is mainly because it's fashionable, and looks prettier than larger fonts. Designers do, in fact, need to become more aware of how their design works with various sizes of fonts, and find attractive ways of presenting information
the thing is, most 'web designers' are ignorant of the fact that design for the web and graphic design for print are very different tasks.
i tend to browse the web at 120% or so, in firefox. if i see a site where text flows over the top of images, or the layout has serious breakage at 'only' 120%, then my assumption is that the designer is trying to work with the web as if it is a print medium - one where they have control down to a single em, or where they can precisely specify colors (a la Pantone) rather than selecting combinations of the 'web safe colors'.
I should mention, in relation to Denise's mention of IE's font size selection options, that I consider that functionality within IE to be terribly broken and limited. Other folks are definitely doing it better, making browsers that are more accessible.
--elijah _______________________________________________ The Air-l-aoir.org@listserv.aoir.org mailing list is provided by the Association of Internet Researchers http://aoir.org Subscribe, change options or unsubscribe at: http://listserv.aoir.org/listinfo.cgi/air-l-aoir.org
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jeremy hunsinger jhuns@vt.edu www.cddc.vt.edu jeremy.tmttlt.com www.tmttlt.com
() ascii ribbon campaign - against html mail /\ - against microsoft attachments
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Andrew -- andrewwenn@mac.com
Let me first admit that I didn't follow the entire thread, even though I used to be a webmaster (and hats off to the AoIR web crew, while I'm at it). Although someone might have said it already, it did strike me how the topic of this conversation reflects the history of the Internet itself. Initially it was created by academics and had a very open, decentralized culture, but over time different interests got into the game and have instituted different types of control, and some failed instances (like in the mid 1990s when the media giants, in the US at least, were going to make the Web like TV since they had no idea what the Web was, but they wanted to control it). Initially, TBL made HTTP/HTML a very decentralized protocol, for information and not for publishing and not an attempt to replicate print online, so formatting (like.... font size!) would be left up to the user's client (web browser) (this is very decentralized in terms of control). Nowadays, what with all of these non-computer types who think the Web is paper-based (I hate white background, this isn't paper and the contrast kills my eyes: CRTs project, paper reflects, but I digress), the move for Web standards is all about control (like CSS) on the server end, no longer on the client end. So, font sizes, yeah. Decentralizing control allows for all the different browsers out there and different versions of them (since they all parse HTML differently), so if you make your pages really tightly controlled on your end, it won't work and you'll need to update your page formatting constantly. I'm a fan of basic HTML and don't worry if it isn't going to look exactly the way you want it -- you can't control, for instance, what size a surfer's browser window is at for long. So no I'm not actually answering the question directly. (I deleted the thread to keep the email shorter and since I'm not replying to any specific part of it.) ndp... --------------------------------------------- Nathaniel Poor, Ph.D. Lecturer Communication Studies University of Michigan www.umich.edu/~natpoor
Dear AIR'ers - NOT pushing IE or Netscape either one. Just gave the font size options for those that didn't have them in the two most common browsers (sorry but). Also don't support my Uni using 8 pt fonts (but again). That's what you get. We use Avant around here quite a bit and also Mozilla Foxfire. The Mac users use something else, sorry can't recall, Kalidescope? Cheers, Denise ===== Denise N. Rall, PhD candidate, School of Environ. Science, Southern Cross University, Lismore NSW 2480 Sustainable Forestry Mentoring Coordinator & Internet Researcher Room T2.12, +61 (0)2 6620 3577 Tuesdays or Mobile 0438 233 344 http://www.scu.edu.au/schools/rsm/staff/pages/drall/index.html
Denise said: >> Ultimately font size is determined by the reader (viewer), go to the Explorer Menu> View >Font size and select your font size preference... Yes, this is correct, UNLESS the designer makes the webpage font 'static' using style sheets or the like, forcing it to be a specific size regardless of what font size setting the user has in their browser. Kylie ------------------------ Kylie J. Veale | Brisbane, Australia GradDipInvEnv, MInetStds(Design) PhD Candidate Media & Information, Curtin University of Technology -----Original Message----- From: air-l-aoir.org-bounces@listserv.aoir.org [mailto:air-l-aoir.org-bounces@listserv.aoir.org] On Behalf Of Denise N. Rall Sent: Sunday, 30 January 2005 1:04 PM To: air-l@listserv.aoir.org; ro.agbonlahor@arcisng.net Subject: Re: [Air-l] Web font sizes Sorry I've been on the list a bit but I have to reply to this. Ultimately font size is determined by the reader (viewer), go to the Explorer Menu> View >Font size and select your font size preference. I forget what it is in Netscape, it's in Preferences ?. I leave my font sizes small when building as it is my University's preference for a standard web page. The size to the viewer is not an issue - the VIEWER can pick to go larger. Grandparents who know this leave their Explorer View font size on larger or largest. So they view every web page in a large font. They won't even SEE the small fonts you are talking about unless someone changes their settings! ;-) Cheers, Denise --- Rosemary Agbonlahor <ro.agbonlahor@arcisng.net> wrote:
Hello all,
Does anyone know why some websites use very small Arial type fonts? I asked a colleague and he said it was so as to get as much information as possible on a page. Have there been studies in this area?
Thanks a lot,
Rosemary
====================== Rosemary Agbonlahor Africa Regional Centre for Information Science P.O. Box 22133 6 Benue Road University of Ibadan NIGERIA ------------------------------------------ Self development demands self discipline _______________________________________________ The Air-l-aoir.org@listserv.aoir.org mailing list is provided by the Association of Internet Researchers http://aoir.org Subscribe, change options or unsubscribe at: http://listserv.aoir.org/listinfo.cgi/air-l-aoir.org
Join the Association of Internet Researchers: http://aoir.org/airjoin.html
===== Denise N. Rall, PhD candidate, School of Environ. Science, Southern Cross University, Lismore NSW 2480 Sustainable Forestry Mentoring Coordinator & Internet Researcher Room T2.12, +61 (0)2 6620 3577 Tuesdays or Mobile 0438 233 344 http://www.scu.edu.au/schools/rsm/staff/pages/drall/index.html _______________________________________________ The Air-l-aoir.org@listserv.aoir.org mailing list is provided by the Association of Internet Researchers http://aoir.org Subscribe, change options or unsubscribe at: http://listserv.aoir.org/listinfo.cgi/air-l-aoir.org Join the Association of Internet Researchers: http://aoir.org/airjoin.html
participants (10)
-
Andrew Wenn -
Denise N. Rall -
elijah wright -
Heidi haLevi -
jeremy hunsinger -
Kylie Veale -
Nathaniel Poor -
Robert Luke -
Rosemary Agbonlahor -
Ulla Bunz