We had this debate on one of my projects a couple of years back. We
were working on a transactional site that targeted older adults with
the ages between 35 - 70. I was a strong proponent of 14px + In our
tests we got no comment negative or positive about the font size from
older test subjects while the younger test subjects consistently
commented positively about readability.
While not enough folks were tested to form any absolute conclusions my
theory was that the older subjects all were using reading glasses and
therefore were not straining as hard and the younger / middle aged
folks without glasses.
Based on that test I would not go below 13px for core reading text. --C
--------------------------------------------
Coryndon Luxmoore
Interaction Designer
coryndon (at) luxmoore (dot) com
---------------------------------------------
On Mar 10, 2009, at 3:50 PM, Marty DeAngelo wrote:
I know that there was a discussion on this list a while back, but I'd
love to get a more recent update as to what people feel is the best
'standard' font size for an average audience. We are currently in
a bit of a debate with a client about their 'standard' font size.
Their guidelines dictate using 14px Arial / 13px Verdana for content,
which we feel is too large. We feel that a 12px Arial / 11px Verdana
standard is more reasonable to most users (in essence, using the 75%
base font adjustment from the browser standards and then using ems
from that point forward).
I've done some research of different usability sites and found that
MOST agree that a standard of 75%/0.8em/12px seem to be the best
size, but it is by no means unanimous. But I trust the opinions here
to help me prove my point or theirs.
P.S. We do use font-sizers on all of our sites, and they run at
settings of 1.0/1.2/1.5em (effectively 12px, 14px, 18px), which I
think takes care of the normal gamut of needs; in my opinion, most
users who need a font size larger than that already know how to get
it and don't need us to intervene.
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