Tour and Quizzes #4

Find a page where the text bumps up against the left edge. Do you find your eye bumping into that edge every time you go back to the next sentence? Yes I do!

http://continuouswave.com/boats/laurentian/

http://www.forst.tu-muenchen.de/EXT/LST/METEO/staccato/rg_imau.html

Find a page that is set in all caps. Read it, pretending you didn't notice it was all caps. Did you read all the way through? Or did something make you not continue? Did you notice how you have to work harder to read lots of all-cap text?

http://www.dailyrecord.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060604/NEWS05/606040331/1008/NEWS01

Experiment with the default font in your browser. Find a font and size you feel most comfortable with.

With your default set, keep an eye out for a page where the designer has specified the font to be smaller than your default. What do you think? Find the button or the menu command in your browser that lets you enlarge or reduce the size of the type on the screen. How does it affect the carefully designed layouts of web pages? Remember, this will happen to your pages as well!

Change the resolution on your monitor and notice how it affects the size of the type on web pages. Remember, many people have their monitors set at a higher resolution so they can see more on the screen (but everything looks smaller) or a lower resolution so everything looks bigger (but they see less at one time).

Keep an eye open for a web site where you think the designer has broken the standard rules of typography, yet the site “works”—it's clear, you know what is going on, the typographic contrasts help structure the hierarchy of information, you can read it, it even looks good.

Put two things into words: 1) What “rules” were broken, and 2) Exactly what is it that makes the typography still work? Is it the spacing? Line lengths? Size? Composition, or control of how youreye flows through the design from one important element to another? Typeface design? If you can put it into words, you gain the power to incorporate the discoveries into your own work.

Chapter 12 quiz

1. Never chose any old type face.  It should be readable and legible.
2. Never let the writing stretch the entire width of the page.  It is easy to lose your place and frankly I automatically skip site that look like this.
3. Never set long lines of text in ALL CAPS.  It may be OK to do short burst of text for emphasis.
4. Never put red text on an orange background.  It will be too hard to read.
5. This will be OK as long as the entire page is not large.  If you want to draw attention to a particular section of text, use largeness sparingly for that text only,
6. Only specify that links not be underlines if you are very concerned about the readability of the text.  If you do this be sure that the links are still clearly identifiable.
7. Never make the main text smaller that the visitors browser.  If they like it small they can set their browser the see things smaller.
8. Never use a busy background.  It is too distracting
9. Never use all italics.  It will be hard to read.
10. Never use really grungy type face throughout the entire page.  Use it for heading or buttons but not for the text.
11. Make text very small only if the information is not important.