According to the statistics, more than 95% of the information available on the internet is available in the text. So, when we talk about one of the most important communication means of web design, we are strategically pointing towards the “text”.
The main goal of the website, a product or service is usually communicating the message to its audience and this is where the text plays a vital role. Even though with changing trends, an interactive content that speaks to its audience also depends on the pictures and graphics, you cannot ignore the several typography tips to create an exceptional brand value for their business.
Finding your target audience is one thing while retaining them by keeping them entertained is a whole other context. Even a website, blog or an article with long-form informative content and a tested content marketing strategy sometimes fails to retain the audience just because of bad typography.
You can make the art of reading an effortless task with good typography regardless of the value of the content though both things combined can result in a better ROI and more engagement. Bad typography that requires a lot of effort from the user to read the content is usually a turn-off and needs to be avoided. Since the main purpose of creating a website is to attract the target audience that can further turn into customers, there must be no stone unturned when it comes to engaging readers or visitors for a longer time.
Optimizing the typography is one of the ways to optimize your content for a better customer reach. It offers the content better readability as well as accessibility. Better typography further adds to the balance of the graphic and allows the designers to create a remarkable web design.
Since keeping them engaged throughout the length of the content is rather daunting, several typography tips can help to optimize your user interface for better audience retention and more conversions.
10 Tips of Typography in Web Design
1. Use the Minimum Number of Fonts
It is easy to wreck the entire website by using multiple fonts multiple times to showcase different aspects of the article or the content. A well-structured website or a web page should only feature at most 3 fonts to make it look professional. A writer or a designer should always use a standardised font for publishing the content while at the same time using a standardized font size. It is important to use familiar fonts like Arial, Times New Roman, Calibri in the content as it allows the webpage to engage the users for a large amount of time. In addition to this, multiple fonts used inside the text can wreak havoc by drawing more attention towards the formatting of the page rather than the actual content.
If you decide to make use of more than one standard font in the content, all you need to make sure is that all the fonts complement each other to have the users give major attention to what’s written rather than how it is written. To understand how the font compliments each other, you must take a good look at their character width.
2. Use Standard Font Size
Size of the font is one of the vital measures that affect the credibility of the text. The size of the font is directly proportional to the importance of the message that content written in that font wants to convey. For instance, writers generally use capital letters for the things they want to shout about and put emphasis on. Apart from this, you need to be considerate about your readers and use the text size that compels them to focus on the reading material and not on the formatting of the page.
For a well-structured page, the font size should vary from:
Body Text- Minimum Pt 10 - 12
Title Text- Minimum Pt 14- 16
Subheading Text - Minimum Pt 12-14
Apart from this, some accomplished novelists prefer to keep the same standard text and size throughout their text which further allows them to keep a serious tone that further requires concentration and understanding from the user. Lastly, you also need to consider the age of your target audience while deciding on the text size as well as fonts.
3. Limit Line Length
One of the best ways to make a text more readable is to limit the number of characters used per line or sentence. A limited number of words in a single line makes more sense and makes it easy for the readers to understand the text. According to the professionals having around 60 characters per line is the key to increasing the text readability while maintaining the eligibility as well.
Usually, larger sentences make it difficult for the readers to understand the text when compared to shorter and appropriate characters per line. The latter makes it easy for the readers to understand a single line at a time while moving on to the next line with a fresh approach. Reading so many words and shifting back and forth between lines disrupts the tone of the content and affects readability adversely. Also, a mobile-friendly webpage should use almost 30 to 40 characters per line to make it easy for the users to read with concentration.
4. Use Appropriate Line Height
One of the most important typography rules is to keep an appropriate leading or line-height between the words. The line-height amidst the words needs to be optimized to make it appealing to the readers and for effective readability. According to the best typography rules, the maximum line height between the text should be 30% more as compared to the character height. The basic idea behind using the white space between the lines and words is to allow the readers to digest the context before moving on to another word thus aiding better readability.
5. Choose Fonts with Distinguishable Characters
Major fonts out there tend to confuse the readers when it comes to differentiating between the similar letters like “i” and “l”. You need to make sure that the type of fond used to display the text onto the web page allows the raiders to distinguish between the almost similar characters.
6. Avoid All Capital Letters
According to the typography professionals. The legibility of the text is highly affected by the use of all capital letters when the major idea behind the text is to allow the readers to actually read and understand it. All caps for a word or a line is acceptable when designing context that doesn’t require reading just like when you are trying to design logos or just a simple quote.
7. Check out for the Color Contrast
Another typography rule for designing a highly attractive and readable web page is to have adequate colour contrast. It is never advisable to use the same colour for the text as well as the background as it puts a rather high strain on the eyes. A well-contrasted text and background make it easy to read the entire text within a shorter duration. For a shorter text, the contrast ratio should vary within 4:5:1 against the background and the longer text should have a contrast ratio around 3:1 against its background.
8. Keep a Check for the Color Blind
Colour blindness is one of the most common conditions in users. Apart from this, the red and green colours should be avoided when writing the text as they are the most common colours that are affected by the colour-blind state. It is necessary to use another symbol in addition to a distinguished colour to highlight the important parts of a text. This way, it makes it easier for people with certain eye conditions to understand the importance of that particular text.
9. Correct Alignment
One of the important factors that affect the readability of the text is the alignment. A well-structured website or a web page is always aligned according to the type of content. For instance, if the text involves a letter dedicated to someone, it should start from the very left corner while other circumstances that include heading and subheadings not related to the content below them can be aligned in the middle.
10. Avoid Blinking Text
It's never a good option to use a blinking text to convey a message or any other CTA as it can cause seizures in various individuals without even trying to. Moreover, it is one of the most annoying typography measures one can use to compel the audience to read the text or message which further leads to the user leaving the webpage just for the sake of sanity.
