[Astraeus]

I am going to publish some of my writings (five years' worth) on my personal website so that they can be read online but, before I do so, was wondering what tips people have for making it easy to read?

I've tried Times New Roman Size 12, black-on-white and it becomes difficult to read after a short while - even with ClearType enabled.

Does anyone know of a better style for displaying long lengths of text?

[Dave Weystoner]

Try this for size: Things my girlfriend and I have argued about

Once I started reading it I couldn't stop, so the font, text size, colours etc must be pretty good.

Dave

[Astraeus]

Originally Posted by Dave Weystoner

Try this for size: Things my girlfriend and I have argued about

Once I started reading it I couldn't stop, so the font, text size, colours etc must be pretty good.

Dave

From a quick readover, I believe that may well have been as much down to the content as the aesthetics.

[Iccz]

I'd export everything you do into a protected PDF if possible.

For the font, it depends if you want a Sans Serif or a Serif font.

Most books opt for a Serif font, though some technical ones go for Serif...
The size should depend on the font really and readability.

I really like:
Download Sabon® Font Family - Linotype.com
and
Download Caslon #540 Font Family - Linotype.com

Others to possibly try:
Garamond, Georgia, Goudy, Century Schoolbook, Bookman, Book Antigua


If you're displaying on a website, you want to make sure it's not too wide a page for the reading etc, put a black font on a slightly off white colour, a bright white is sometimes too much of a contrast, with paperbooks you never get brilliant white paper.

[SecretSquirrel]

Usability testing is vitally important, but it may not give you all the information you need about font selection. The problem is that usability tests usually involve just a small number of people and your personal PC.

That's why the studies done for the Software Usability Research Laboratory (SURL) at Wichita State University are such valuable resources. In January 2002, SURL published the results of a research study titled: "A Comparison of Popular Online Fonts: Which Size and Type is Best?."

It's helpful to read the entire study, but we're going to summarize some of the most important points here:

Legibility: The most legible fonts were Arial, Courier, and Verdana. Comic Sans was found to be the most illegible of the eight fonts evaluated.

Attractiveness: Study participants found Georgia and Times New Roman the most attractive fonts.

Font size: At the 10 point size, participants preferred Verdana. Times New Roman was the least preferred. At the 12-point size, Arial was the most preferred and Times New Roman the least preferred. Overall, Verdana was the most preferred font and Times New Roman the least preferred.


Now, some of these results appear to conflict. How could Times New Roman be the most attractive font and at the same time be the least preferred - no matter what the size?

The study's authors speculate that most people are just more comfortable with Times New Roman because they see it a lot:
"It is possible that Georgia and Times were considered attractive because of their widespread use in both print and on computer screens (Times also serves as the primary default for Microsoft Office software suites) and, thus, participants were more familiar with this type of font."

Quicker Is Better Online

During the study, the researchers found "significant differences in reading time. Generally, Times and Arial were read faster than Courier, Schoolbook, and Georgia." They also note that overall
"...Verdana appears to be the best overall font choice. Besides being the most preferred, it was read fairly quickly and was perceived as being legible."

Remember that people read differently online than in print. They quickly scan and look for important points before they settle down and begin reading the content closely. So your font choice and size are important! Anything that makes the page harder to read makes visitors more likely to click away to another site.

But font choices aren't the only determining factor in page legibility. You have other options too:Header tags help define page structure for easy scanning. Keywords in header tags will also help boost your site in the search engine rankings.

Descriptive link text gives important clues about the link's destination and content. Visitors are more likely to click when they know where they're going!

Color choices give visitors visual clues about important content by drawing the eye towards highlighted sections. Just be sure you don't give important information using only color as a guide. That will lock out visitors using assistive technologies like screen readers.

Contrast. Always make sure there's enough contrast between your text and page background color - particularly if you're using a background image on the page! You may find that you have to use a larger text size to compensate for the visual distraction from the background image.


All these are important components of page legibility and usability. Consider them all carefully: font, font size, page structure, links and navigation, color, and contrast. When they work together well, visitors see a well-designed, easy-to-read, and informative page. They're likely to stay for a while and make many return visits!

From here.

Original paper here.

[Astraeus]

Thanks for the replies. I'd not considered putting it onto a PDF as it's likely I'll only offer the links to a very select few people. Not to mention the quality is far below what anyone would enjoy plagairising!

I think I'll opt for a serif font, they're slightly more bookish. And choosing an off-white background seems appropriate too. If I'm publishing several short stories, do you suppose it's better to display them on separate pages linked together or the same page with dividers if all of the stories feature the same protagonist?