An important aspect of running a blog or a text-heavy website is readability. This is the concept of keeping a reader interested with an understandable flow of progression and alleviated strain on the eyes.
To start off with, avoid large blocks of text. These are intimidating and also difficult to read as it is easy to lose your place. Separate your text out into multiple paragraphs. This will help ease the intimidation factor of a wall of text as well as provide natural breaks for different topics. Adding in pictures or graphics (with a buffer border to keep the text from crowding around it) or breaking items into bulleted lists will also provide some white space and metaphorical “breathing room” for the eyes.
An easy way to point out the proper path of vision is changing font size. A step beyond this, text hierarchy, uses several sizes to differentiate between titles, headers of sections, and the body. This keeps the text organized and clear.
Bolding or italicizing for emphasis can be a tasteful addition, as long as it is used sparsely and specifically. Inserting bolded or italicized words creates an invisible category in the reader’s mind, so be sure to keep it consistent. In other words, if you have been bolding terms that you then define, avoid bolding, for instance, a warning or exclamation, as it will feel out of place to the reader and be distracting.
Emphasizing with all capitalized letters is usually a bad idea. While it certainly draws attention, it can make the word hard to read and can slow down the reader’s train of thought. In short titles, all caps can be acceptable.
A fun way to add character and style to your text is through changing the fonts so that, for example, the title is more unique and striking than the body text. The best way to make sure this is complementary and not distracting is to keep all of the fonts within the same font family. If your body text uses a sans-serif font (as is typical on the web), look for a title or header font that is also sans-serif. This is an easy trick for finding fonts that look excellent together.
Your line-length or measure ideally should be between 65 and 75 characters. Any longer will make it difficult for the reader’s eyes to find the continuation of the sentence from line to line.
Be aware of your audience. If you need to use a word they might not be familiar with, provide a definition in a non-demeaning way. A simple rephrasing of the word within parentheses immediately after its use is a safe way to make sure you and your readers are on the same page.
Kerning is the space between specific characters in a sequence. Letters like “A” “V” and “W” fit well with most other letters, but put alongside each other can be too wide, creating an awkward space in the middle of a word. This is where kerning comes in. Most design programs have the ability to adjust pairs one at a time, affecting only the highlighted text. Before you begin, make sure kerning is turned on in your program’s type preference menu.
