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March 7, 2007

Web Design: Improve the Legibility of Your Website in Five Steps

If your customer feels comfortable reading your website, he or she will be much more likely to stick around, and actually make a purchase. Furthermore, that customer will be much more likely to come back and buy from you again.

However, if your site has tiny fonts, blinding colors, or lines and images piled on top of one another, then you may as well simply tell your prospective clients to leave your site. Because that is exactly what they will do.

To make sure that your site is appealing and suitable for ease of reading, make sure to follow these steps:

1 – use CSS to format your text. CSS (also known as Cascading Style Sheets) use only one style sheet, allowing for control over the way the entire site appears. By making changes to the style sheet, the entire website is updated so that the process is substantially simpler.

2 – the font size of your website must be large enough to read. It needn’t be enormous – in fact, it shouldn’t be – however, it must be a good sized type so that it is easily legible. Sized 12-pt in a standard font will usually suffice.

3 – make certain that your text contrasts with the background, instead of blending. For example, black on white or white on black. You can use colors, but if you ever need to squint at the page, or if it seems in places that the text is barely there, some changes are needed.

4 – use lots of space in your content. Don’t stack your lines one on top of the other. Use the line spacing directive provided by CSS. Typically, you should be aiming for about 140 percent of the height of a standard line.

5 – break up your text. Nobody likes to read a giant, solid block of text. Especially on a computer screen. It’s so much easier and more appealing to read text that is broken up using headlines, small paragraphs, and bullets. Anything that changes the pace of the flow of the text will usually work very well.

Last but not least, don’t forget about good spelling and grammar. If you want to be taken seriously, and trusted as a business, you should polish your text. It not only makes for better content, but higher interest in your products as well.

Mark

Posted by Mark at March 7, 2007 10:10 AM