I see some sites that are using larger font types. Sometimes this require a wider format, past 900px. The hallmark of these sites is that they are fairly easy to read and the design is relatively direct and simple. Makes it hard to miss anything. It’s all spelled out and accessible for the laziest or most impatient visitors.
The point is I realized this might also be good for people who actually just have problems seeing. Because this often starts around age 40 for most people, and usually gets worse, that’s a big chunk of traffic over age 40. I’m wondering if having bigger fonts increases traffic and revenue because of this. Any thoughts?
I’ve never done any research about your issues but I do use larger fonts myself for the very reasons you mentioned. It is easier for me to read and to work with. Most of my customers have monitor sizes of 1024 or larger and less than 5% have 800 or smaller so the larger text doesn’t take up all that much more space.
[QUOTE=basschick;50290]big fonts have never sold as well for me. of course, what you call a larger size and what i call a larger size may not be the same.
btw, i wouldn’t call a site wider unless it was wider than what fits in a 1024 browser.[/QUOTE]
large fonts meaning about the exact same size as this writing on this post. Is this the size that doesn’t do as well for you?
For me it all depends on what section of a page I’m looking at. I mostly use font type 12 and larger. Size 12 for regular text, size 14 for paragraph or column headings and size 16/18 for other main headings. I try to stay away from any font sizes over 18. I know lots of webmasters use size 8 or 10 for font size. For me, personally, that makes me have to pull out a magnifying glass since I use a large screen with small font size settings.
I think 12-14px is perfect for paragraph text, 16-18 for headers, and I use up to 20 for link prompts. I’ve found they work well.
I have a huge pet peeve with dark text on dark backgrounds etc. I cannot see how people actually make sales from doing that. The whole idea of putting text on a web site is so people can read it. lol
Depending on how the blog is set up, I have been known to use 14px text for entry text. Example - http://thebearranch.com, and it makes pretty good sales.
What you are asking is if your site would use larger font as a default it would make more sales. I doubt it would have any major impact. But anything smaller than what you see on this forum (or on gaydemon.com) starts being difficult for some people to read.
However its slightly tricker than that… I use relative size for fonts on this forum and GayDemon.com so what you see isnt what others will see, it depends on your screensize and browser.
But in general, for larger amounts of text you should use a size thats easy to read, like on this forum. For shorter things, anything that’s not very important you can use smaller.
Whenever I see font size 8 or smaller, I get the same feeling I get with those disclaimers on TV ads, what are they trying to hide, you know legally they have to put it in the ad, no one can read it though, so it might as well not have been there. I think a more important ‘selling’ point is background and font color. Whenever that screams at me, I quickly close the website. Yes, it might stand out, but if it gives me a headache after trying to read the first line, I give up.
[QUOTE=basschick;50312]
above is a graphic quoting you - is this the size you see the font on the board? remember - thanks to firefox, not all of us see it the same size.
i’ve never found 13 to be all that large - i’ve used 11 to 13 for years and 16 to 20 for titles.[/QUOTE]
Yup, that is the size!
Thanks and for everyone’s opinion. It has been really useful.
I summed it up in my first post, but really here’s the gist of it. For example, my vision in my twenties was perfect. Now at 49, my vision is average for people who need glasses. Sounds like no big deal, but I’m sure a lot of people can relate to how glasses (or whatever) aren’t ideal. It’s a real pain to have to struggle to read or look at something you know that others see effortlessly. You start thinking things you never thought before, like “why did they make this so hard to see?” It seems? to some extent that surfers like everything brought to them then and there to grab onto or else their attention wanders off very quickly. Putting that all together, and that the over 40 (or people wearing glasses) crowd is likely some sizable portion of porn consumers, it does make me wonder if font size (lol…just noticed the analogy) matters, influences a site’s income specifically. Who knows.
i’d have said you summed it up in the first post except that i don’t think many people would consider this a large font.
so yes, if you’re going much smaller than this, i expect it might help sales to go this size as we have a couple board members who have told me they have trouble reading this one.
