Using Text on Web Pages

Issues that affect text

• pixelated, low resolution text
• availablility of fonts
• constraints on the eye (how we read)
• platform

Text layout

• left alignment (no centered or justified text)
• left headlines
• 365 (max) text cells (50 characters long or 9-10 words longat 12 point)

Text case

• never use all upper case
• down style (capitalize only first word and proper nouns)

Text font face

• use at least one from each platform
• for printing: serif fonts (times new roman, courier, palatino)
• for onscreen reading: sans serif fonts (verdana, arial, comic, ms sans serif, geneva)
• use exact name of font

Text emphasis

• headlines: use bold or increase size by one measure (point, size, pixels, etc.) (not both)
• italics: use for convention (book titles, foreign words), not large blocks
• underlining: avoid it
• spacing and indentation: effective if used consistently

Text color:

• Readability: black or dark colors on white
• Printing: black on white
• links: make all links (vlink, alink, etc.) the same color
• use colors only for links and headlines, not within text blocks

Style sheets

• unify sites
• clean up code
• separate content and design

Next week: text style and style guides