Your typestyle and the visual appearance of your text is an important part
of creating a particular look and feel for your site. In other words, it's an
important part of meeting your site owners' branding goals. It is also key to
creating an effective visual hierarchy that can help guide users through your
site content.
Choose a Type Style That
- is legible
- supports your site's look and feel
- provides visual clues about meaning
- supports your visual hierarchy in order to guide users through your content
Don't use more than two type styles in your visual design. Instead, change
the
size or
weight of text to create
visual emphasis.
Keep in mind the restrictions that HTML places on typestyles. There are only
a few fonts that you can use with confidence that users will have the font installed.
If they don't have it, the browser will default to another font. Define
alternate fonts and make sure to preview your pages with different browsers
and on different platforms to see how your design survives the transition.
Define a Consistent Size and Style for These Text Elements:
- Headings
- Body text
- Captions
- Pop-ups (avoid these if you can, since most users don't read them)
- Call-outs or side features
Keep the visual appearance of mouseovers, pop-up windows, captions, references,
and links distinct from the appearance of body text.
Emphasize headings by
- using bold type
- using a larger type size
- Using a different typestyle
- adding a shaded background or
- using light type on a dark background
Avoid overuse of horizontal rules or underlined text (underlining makes text
harder to read).
Remember that older users or users with disabilities may need your text to
be larger. Design your site so that users can resize your text easily.
