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Bug 19423 - Font size for main body text too small for legibility
Summary: Font size for main body text too small for legibility
Status: NEW
Alias: None
Product: webplatform.org
Classification: Unclassified
Component: skin (show other bugs)
Version: unspecified
Hardware: Macintosh MacOS X
: P2 minor
Target Milestone: ---
Assignee: Doug Schepers
QA Contact: public-webplatform-bugs list
URL:
Whiteboard:
Keywords:
Depends on:
Blocks: 19369
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Reported: 2012-10-10 08:23 UTC by David Bushell
Modified: 2018-10-09 00:34 UTC (History)
2 users (show)

See Also:


Attachments
WebPlatform/MDN font size comparision (32.76 KB, image/png)
2012-10-10 08:23 UTC, David Bushell
Details

Description David Bushell 2012-10-10 08:23:01 UTC
Created attachment 1221 [details]
WebPlatform/MDN font size comparision

The base font size set on the body element is 14px. This is too small for comfortable reading. This problem is compounded by the fact that the font "Gudea" has a relatively small x-height compared to the fallback "Arial" (making it look even smaller).

It's interesting to compare to MDN (attached screenshot) which is also 14px but set in "Lucida Grande" and therefore optically larger. Wikipedia is 13px and a  default "sans-serif", though I suspect most designers would agree the type setting on Wikipedia (considering it's nature) is abysmal.

I would suggest a minimum of 16px. This article makes a great case: http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2011/10/07/16-pixels-body-copy-anything-less-costly-mistake/
Comment 1 Lea Verou 2012-10-16 09:59:42 UTC
(In reply to comment #0)
> Created attachment 1221 [details]
> WebPlatform/MDN font size comparision
> 
> The base font size set on the body element is 14px. This is too small for
> comfortable reading. This problem is compounded by the fact that the font
> "Gudea" has a relatively small x-height compared to the fallback "Arial"
> (making it look even smaller).
> 
> It's interesting to compare to MDN (attached screenshot) which is also 14px
> but set in "Lucida Grande" and therefore optically larger. Wikipedia is 13px
> and a  default "sans-serif", though I suspect most designers would agree the
> type setting on Wikipedia (considering it's nature) is abysmal.
> 
> I would suggest a minimum of 16px. This article makes a great case:
> http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2011/10/07/16-pixels-body-copy-anything-less-
> costly-mistake/

Hi,

Indeed we need to increase the default font-size. In addition, we shouldn't explicitly set anything, but trust the browser defaults (which are almost always 16px anyway), so that users with low eyesight can tweak them.