VIA Interaction

Friday, August 12, 2005

Type size

It's a pet peeve of mine, particularly because I need bifocals (but don't yet have them), a result of presbyopia, the inevitable deterioration of eyes' ability to focus that makes it hard to see objects close up.

Like computer screens.

The Web is not for kids any more - everyone uses the Web. And Web designers (youngsters, for the most part) love tiny type. Drives me crazy.

As a result of the aging baby boomers, industries where there is a closer correlation between readability and money are making changes. From "Books, Not Tales, Get Taller Before Baby Boomers' Eyes" in today's New York Times:

Faced with declining sales, two of the biggest publishers of mass-market titles, the Penguin Group and Simon & Schuster, have begun issuing new paperbacks by some of their most popular authors in a bigger size that allows larger type and more space between lines.

'We've been losing the foundation of our customer base because their eyesight is getting worse, and the books are getting harder and harder to read,' said Jack Romanos, the chief executive of Simon & Schuster, whose Pocket Books division introduced the mass-market paperback format in the United States in 1939.

posted by Tim Beidel at 8/12/2005 09:27:00 AM

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