Text suggestions to remember when designing a site.

Keep it short

Present your information in as few words as possible, while still maintaining an interesting style. Avoid rambling commentary, wordy sales pitches and overly long explanations.

Avoid blinking text

It is distracting and annoying in almost every circumstance.

Avoid using all uppercase letters

It is difficult to read text in all capital letters. As we read text, we often look at the shapes of entire words as well as the the shape of each letter. Entire words in all capital letters essentially look square or rectangular while lower case lettering will help define a unique shape for each word that essentially increases the speed that the viewer can read the words. Look at the examples below; notice how much quicker your eye moves across the first example compared with the second.

Create a Glossary

If you sell products or information that is new to many users, you may want to help them understand your products better by creating an online glossary to help viewers answer questions about your products.

Keep your type style simple

It is recommended that you use the Times, Helvetica or Verdana font in your pages for ease of readability and compatibility on other machines. You are limited to the fonts available on the viewer's computer, so be cautious of using a font that is not widely used or is difficult to read.

60 characters per line

It is generally agreed that 60 characters per line is easier to read than longer lines. This is because when you're done with one line, your eye's don't have to search for the beginning of the next line. It is close enough to the last one you just read. When you are building a web page with a lot of text, it will help your reader if you put the text into a table of a fixed size. This will eliminate the text from reformatting to large widths when your viewer resizes their browser window. Use a depth of 450-500 pixels for your table widths.