My mother is a teacher. Thus, web design is not her forte. However, she is great for critiques on my work. From the beginning of my poor attempts at Neopets Pet Pages, I knew I could count on her honest opinion.
Back in the day, I was experimenting with my style, still finding myself design wise. I was rockin’ that ‘10px really tiny text‘ look. This phase lasted for a while. After all, it was my site and my visitors were around my age, therefore they could read tiny text! Not to mention, that’s what was ‘in’ way back when. Well, every single time I would show my mom a new layout of mine, she wouldn’t hesitate to bring up my ever so tiny text. Eventually, as I transitioned away from Neopets and Graphics sites, I took usability into account. I realized that small text really wasn’t doing anyone a favor (especially my vision).
Helvetica, Arial, Georgia, Times New Roman.
Now, I always keep the visitor in mind when designing my websites, and text has a lot to do with it. I hope this serves as a learning point for others as well. Although my target audience here is teens, I get plenty of visitrs that are older. Making things user friendly is the smart way to do things. So, please update your thinking and use bigger, more readable text!
Let’s just hope that Facebook can learn a lesson or two from this.
Well, I am waiting for the one you are building for me.
Very interested comments on your learning experiences. specially regarding the fact that we could always learn from constructive criticism. Learning is the smart thing to do.
error correction on previous comment: Very interesting comments