Is readability key? If no one can read it, is it still well designed?
What should really be a no-brainer in design is often overlooked or quite simply ignored.
The thing that must always be on your mind when you design is how accessible your design is to your audience.
If you are designing for an older audience, the last thing you want to do is set your type small! Or make it really hard for them to read by choosing faint colors.
The flip side of this is that if your audience is more “hip” or “progressive” or “young” then you can get away with more in terms of type than you would with a more “conservative” and “mature” audience. It’s all about acceptability and what your audience expects.
Readability vs Legibility
These terms are often used interchangeably. According to the dictionary, readability is defined as being “easy or enjoyable to read” and “able to be read or deciphered”. Legibility though is type that is “clear enough to read”.
Make it readable: common design choices affecting readability
- Type size: Small sized text makes reading more of a chore
- Number of typefaces: Too many fonts on one page (generally at the most you should only have 3-4) leads to decreased visibility
- Type selection: Display type should never be used for body copy
- Font type: Using sans serif fonts as body type for print, and using serif fonts as body type on the web
- Letter spacing: Too little (and too much)
- Typographic rules: Learning to set type correctly is a must! Read more about it in my newsletter dedicated to this subject
- Color: Text in light colors can reduce readability. Colored text reduces readability compared to black text.
- Backgrounds: Color or picture backgrounds with type over them makes type harder to read
- Alignment: Using too much or arbitrarily chosen alignments (in general, choose one and stick to it)
- Busy layouts: Overlapping images, text boxes or other elements is a definite no-no. Excessive use of filters and effects should be kept at a minimum and used with discretion and when appropriate
- Hierarchy: a layout should have a clear visual structure to the page that guides your readers through the design
- CAPITALIZATION: ALL CAPS TEXT FOR BODY COPY THAT IS A FEW LINES LONG MAKES THE LAYOUT MUCH HARDER TO READ. Display type should never be capitalized.
READABILITY AT WORK
See the sample in my portfolio that shows readability here.
Related posts:
