Seeing one of the opening paragraphs say "The right font choice along with the absence of sidebars and popups makes everything feel easier and better to read" while being distracted by the bloody sidebar and ad on this site is rather interesting.
There does seem to be an assumption that making your reader "feel better" while they read is a good thing. However, the tactics in the article may actually be counter to what a lot of websites want - I.E. the Cracked example. Your eyes "squinting and darting", and the need to "second guess what you should be reading" is actually desirable. They want you to read more / different content on their site. Its possibly more desirable for you to feel distracted and vaguely unsatisfied by the experience, because then you're hunting for the next hit.
Admittedly, there's still a presentation difference between places like Cracked (fuggly blog style) and sites with similar motives (Reddit / HN). In that case though, the deciding feature is mostly minimalism (list presentation, no huge ads, no content tiles, limited social content links, very light scripting). Similar to why I prefer them over traditional blog layout news sites (Reuters, CNN, ect...) as the initial step of surveying the days events has Way less overhead.
For those interested in reading more, I must once again recommend Matthew Butterick's online ebook Practical Typography (http://practicaltypography.com/) as a simple, no-nonsense guide to creating good written documents and websites. I used many of the tips and tricks from that to redesign my personal website (http://kronopath.net/blog/dawn-of-a-new-day/) and I think I got something pretty decent, despite not being a trained designer. Medium was a bit of an inspiration for me as well.
> 2. Pick a font size bigger than 12pt
> However, as more reading shifts to digital and screen resolutions improve, the way we read content is changing. Many designers mention that 16pt font is the new 12pt font. A recent study has also shown that larger font sizes can elicit a stronger emotional connection.
This is an interesting one. I have actually found myself frequently using the zoom-out feature of web browsers to make the font type smaller. I viewed the Kickstarter "2013 year" slideshow that's been making the rounds at about 20%, because I found the huge font they used extremely uncomfortable to read.
I didn't zoom out this particular article, but playing with the zoom level, I find 80% works about best for me.
I wonder why I feel so differently about this issue than current designers do.
I've set my browser to use a fixed-width font (similar to the X terminal ones but with some minor improvements like slashed zero) and override the sizes, precisely so I don't have to deal with some horrible choices some websites make. I use what works best for me.
FWIW, I routinely use https://www.readability.com/ - very few websites are actually readable.
He's wrong when he says that Medium uses a 22pt font. They have a 22 PIXEL font. 22px is much smaller than 22pt. (37signals' blog and Zen Habits also have a 20-something pixel font size, not 20-something points).
Otherwise, this was a pretty decent overview. A lot of programming-focused sites ignore good practices about line lengths and font size.
I would love to see some of the design principles from this article applied to Hacker News.
https://ooomf.com/blog/the-science-behind-fonts-and-how-they...
Do yourself a favour and read it here as it was intended.
TBH, I stopped reading it because I really do not like the font used on the website.
Following the idea that poor layout make a reader feel bad when reading, I wonder if it would be advantageous to purposefully evoke this feeling when writing hit pieces or about something bad that happened?
One study referenced had 20 participants. Another had 25. These are really small studies! Their small size means there is a high chance that the effect doesn't actually hold.
It's fine to say "some small studies suggest this is true", and then use it practice because doing a better study is beyond your means or simply not important. It's fine to do small studies, because it's a cheaper way to look for interesting effects that might then be investigated in more detail. But let's not pretend "science" has decided this issue beyond reasonable doubt.
"Science", some amorphous entity quite disconnected from real science, has become a religion of sorts for some non-scientifically minded people. Put "science" is a post title and you'll fool many into thinking you speak from authority. I feel the author is well intentioned here, but has gone far beyond what the science suggests.