Font Sizes (yet again)

J

Jim Royal

Bob said:
Now, that said, whether you choose to agree with it or not, the web
is now an advertising medium. Not every site is the W3C and a bunch
of boring text specifications. Businesses design their sites (and in
fact an entire coordinated look for their publications) based on
graphical/visual appeal. That requires developing graphics in certain
sizes and including text elements. The relationship between the size
of the graphics and text is key facet of "graphic design" (Hence
my earlier comment regarding your lack of a professional graphics
design background). You may choose to ignore those design rules if
you wish. I do not.

Well said.

There's a tendency among some to get religious about HTML and CSS, and
to view anything that differs from the One True Way as a compromise (in
the perjorative sense). There's also a tendency among some to conflate
design principles with ethical principles.

My approach with regard to font sizes is simply to create something as
clearly readable as possible. In my experience, the average web surfer
finds 1.0em text to be too large for comfortable reading. So, I
typically use 0.9em (or even 0.85em at the outside). It depends on the
font face used, and how common that font face is. It also depends on
the content and design of the page, not to mention what the client
wants/needs.

I also never specify fonts sizes in pixels because Windows IE users
are handicapped with pixel-sized fonts. As long as I'm using scaleable
font sizes, the site visitor has options.

The fact is, no one font size (even 100%) will please all visitors. So,
the best course is to design to piss off the fewest, while leaving
options for everyone else.
 
M

Mark Parnell

Yeah yeah :) See my instant correction :-(

You of all people should know that on Usenet even if you realise your
mistake as you send the message, someone will correct you before you get
a chance to do it yourself. :)
 
R

Richard Rundle

Jim Royal said:
Well said.

My approach with regard to font sizes is simply to create something as
clearly readable as possible. In my experience, the average web surfer
finds 1.0em text to be too large for comfortable reading. So, I
typically use 0.9em (or even 0.85em at the outside). It depends on the
font face used, and how common that font face is. It also depends on
the content and design of the page, not to mention what the client
wants/needs.

I also never specify fonts sizes in pixels because Windows IE users
are handicapped with pixel-sized fonts. As long as I'm using scaleable
font sizes, the site visitor has options.

The fact is, no one font size (even 100%) will please all visitors. So,
the best course is to design to piss off the fewest, while leaving
options for everyone else.

--


You've got to be kidding, right ?

100% or 1em, displays at the size users have *chosen* (either deliberately,
or by default through not changing their default text size) to view web
pages in.

If, "In my experience, the average web surfer finds 1.0em text to be too
large for comfortable reading.", this is a case for education and
instructions for users on how to change the text size, not for trying to
impose your design ideas on those of us who do know how to increase /
decrease the font size.

Don't say "90% of users don't know how to change text size". It's not that
difficult to look it up in help.
 
R

rf

Mark Parnell said:
You of all people should know that on Usenet even if you realise your
mistake as you send the message, someone will correct you before you get
a chance to do it yourself. :)

:)

Cheers
Richard.
 
B

Beauregard T. Shagnasty

Quoth the raven named Richard Rundle:
You've got to be kidding, right ?

Jim uses font sizes smaller than 100%/1em because he uses fonts that
are larger than normal. Also, his first-choice fonts are not available
to many, so most visitors will get Verdana.

http://jimroyal.com/includes/jimroyal_basic.css

I'm also curious as to why <h2> is smaller than <h3>. This page:
http://jimroyal.com/webdesign/index.html
...has <h1>'s and <h3>'s but no <h2>'s. :)

His eye for design is ok, though.
 
J

Jim Royal

Richard Rundle said:
You've got to be kidding, right ?

Not at all. This is my experience; people often complain loudly when
font size is set to 100%. And in my book, experience trumps any design
principle.
Don't say "90% of users don't know how to change text size". It's not that
difficult to look it up in help.

That's a good way to get fired. It's also a good way to piss off the
site visitor ("What do you mean I need to be trained to use your web
site?").

I'm not saying that 100% font size should never be used. there are
clearly situations that call for it, just as there are (rare)
situations that call for pixel-sized fonts. My point is that designers
should make a judgement based on the content and the intended audience.
 
J

Jim Royal

Beauregard T. said:
Jim uses font sizes smaller than 100%/1em because he uses fonts that
are larger than normal. Also, his first-choice fonts are not available
to many, so most visitors will get Verdana.

Exactly. Were I using Arial or Trebuchet, my font size choices would be
different.

I'm also curious as to why <h2> is smaller than <h3>. This page:
http://jimroyal.com/webdesign/index.html
..has <h1>'s and <h3>'s but no <h2>'s. :)

I decided to experiment a bit with the headers and their syntactical
meanings. <h1> is top-level. <h2> is a subhead to <h1>. <h3> is
secondary level. <h4> is a subhead to <h3>.

The result of this choice is that the even-numbered headers are smaller
than the odd numbered ones. This is not without precedence, and it
works as long as I stick to the usage that I've set out.

This also works quite well when the style sheet is removed, or when
viewed in Netscape 4.x or IE 3.0.

Unfortunately, this also means that a page may have only an <h1> and
some <h3>s. Some feel that you should never use an <h3> without first
using an <h2>, either in web publishing or in technical writing (my
other vocation). I'm ambivelent about this, as following that rule to
the letter sometimes means inventing useless headings.
His eye for design is ok, though.

Many thanks. :)
 
T

Toby A Inkster

Jim said:
Unfortunately, this also means that a page may have only an <h1> and
some <h3>s. Some feel that you should never use an <h3> without first
using an <h2>, either in web publishing or in technical writing (my
other vocation).

Indeed skipping straight from <h1> to <h3> is invalid in some flavours of
HTML (e.g. in ISO HTML, but not in any of the W3C specs)

Of course, it's not always as cut and dried as that. Consider the epic
novel Don Quixote. For those unfamiliar with the text, it is about 750
pages long and divided into two parts. Part one is further divided into 4
books. Each book is divided into roughly 15 chapters. Part two is simply
divided into about 50 chapters. So we end up with a structure like this:

<h1>Don Quixote</h1>
<h2>Part One</h2>
<h3>Book 1</h3>

<h4>Chapter 1</h4>
<h4>Chapter 2</h4>
<h4>...</h4>
<h3>Book 2</h3>
<h3>...</h3>

<h2>Part Two</h2>
<h3>Chapter 1</h3>
<h3>Chapter 2</h3>
<h3>...</h3>

Notice that in part one, chapters are <h4> headings and in part two, they
are <h3> headings. In such a situation it might be desirable to skip
straight from <h2> to <h4> to maintain consistency.

(The more observant of you will have noticed that my structure of Don
Quixote is somewhat of a fabrication, as there is indeed an intervening
layer between part 2 and its chapters: it's called Book 5... but I needed
an example.)

So it's not necessarily advisable to mandate strict rules about skipping
heading levels as ISO HTML does.

My current HTML quagmire relates to headings as well. Each page on my site
has some common content towards the end of the HTML file (navigation, site
news, etc). They are currently marked up as <h2> headings, but IMHO they
don't deserve the same status as second-level headings in the page
content. I am considering making them <h6> headings. Any opinions on this?
 
J

Jim Royal

Toby A said:
Indeed skipping straight from <h1> to <h3> is invalid in some flavours of
HTML (e.g. in ISO HTML, but not in any of the W3C specs)

Of course, it's not always as cut and dried as that. Consider the epic
novel Don Quixote.
[snip]

So it's not necessarily advisable to mandate strict rules about skipping
heading levels as ISO HTML does.

I'm impressed. Applying Don Quixote to HTML headings and document
structure... I'm... well, I'm not sure there's a word that quite fits.
Goggle-eyed, perhaps.

My current HTML quagmire relates to headings as well. Each page on my site
has some common content towards the end of the HTML file (navigation, site
news, etc). They are currently marked up as <h2> headings, but IMHO they
don't deserve the same status as second-level headings in the page
content. I am considering making them <h6> headings. Any opinions on this?

Interesting question.

Let's take a look at one of your pages that exhibits this structural
problem. Your header structure is as follows:

.. British
.. . Toad in the Hole
.. . . Ingredients
.. . . Method
.. . . Variation
.. . Shepherd's Pie
.. . . Ingredients
.. . . Which Herbs?
.. . . Method
.. . Roast Leg of Lamb with all the Trimmings
.. . . Ingredients
.. . . . Lamb
.. . . . Gravy
.. . . . Roast Potato
.. . . . Sausages
.. . . . Yorkshire Pudding
.. . . Method
.. . Search
.. . Navigation
.. . Site News
.. . Site Style
.. . Page Information

The problem here is that the various bits of page navigation are at the
same level of each of the dishes, which makes little sense, as they are
not the same type of information.

What I'd do is demote each of the five pieces of page navigation to
<h3>, and add an <h2> to the page... Something like "Getting around
this site." In your default style, you could make this text quite
small, and put it atop the left-hand column. But structurally, it would
still be a higher-level header, and would flow better for your more
austere style sheets.

It might make even more sense to make the "Getting around this site"
header an <h1>, and leave the rest as <h2>s.
 
E

Eric Bohlman

Not at all. This is my experience; people often complain loudly when
font size is set to 100%. And in my book, experience trumps any design
principle.

I think you're falling into what could be called the "help desk fallacy."
If you work a help desk, you'll quickly get the impression that the
majority of users of your product or service are completely clueless. But
that impression will be wrong because you're not talking to all the users,
just the ones who chose to call the help desk, and clueless users are more
likely to turn to the help desk for assistance with elementary problems
than clueful users.

In your case, you have no way of knowing how typical the people who
complain about your font sizes are. They may just be a small number of
loudmouths. Personal experience often gives a rather skewed impression of
the world. If you want to know how people react to font sizes, you need to
do a proper usability study (see Jakob Nielsen's writings) in which the
participants aren't self-selected for any particular predisposition.
 
M

Michael Fesser

Jim said:
Not at all. This is my experience; people often complain loudly when
font size is set to 100%. And in my book, experience trumps any design
principle.

One person complains about too big fonts, another moves silently away
because of too small and unreadable fonts. I prefer the first.
I'm not saying that 100% font size should never be used.

I use it for all the normal text as I see no need to reduce font-size.
The text just appears as if there would be no CSS. Does any user of good
ol' NS4 complains about too big fonts?

Happy new year
Micha
 
J

Jim Royal

Eric said:
In your case, you have no way of knowing how typical the people who
complain about your font sizes are. They may just be a small number of
loudmouths. Personal experience often gives a rather skewed impression of
the world. If you want to know how people react to font sizes, you need to
do a proper usability study (see Jakob Nielsen's writings) in which the
participants aren't self-selected for any particular predisposition.

This is very true. Hard numbers about preferred font size woud be
preferable to anecdotal personal experience. Got the money for a
survey?

Without such a survey, all I have is my personal experience. If I fail
to act on that, I'd be paralyzed, unable to make any choices at all.
 
J

Jim Royal

Michael Fesser said:
One person complains about too big fonts, another moves silently away
because of too small and unreadable fonts. I prefer the first.

Straw man argument. It is equally likely that people who don't like
large fonts are also leaving silently.

Not a single person has complained to me about fonts being too small.
This is because I err on the side of too large, and reduce as requested
(within reason -- I would never ever do this: <http://www.intel.com/>).

Given the likelyhood that I'm going to annoy someone with the font size
I pick, no matter what I do, I'll go with my own best judgement.
 
D

delerious

Given the likelyhood that I'm going to annoy someone with the font size
I pick, no matter what I do, I'll go with my own best judgement.

Yes, you cannot please all of the people all of the time.
 
B

Bob

Yes, you cannot please all of the people all of the time.

Exactly. That would be the graphic design part of web design.
Unfortunately there are too many folks who feel that graphic design
is not part of web design.
 

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