discovr's comments

On: Design Books Every Hacker Should Read

[discovr]

try it now. how is that on your screen./

[tricolon → discovr]

Your base font size is at 12px. I think that's really, really small. I find it much easier to read when it's at 18px instead. Here's a comparison: http://imgur.com/O7F5N,zCyyz#0

Now, anyone can zoom in with their browser... but your entire layout changes width when I do that: http://i.imgur.com/U96Py.png

[discovr → tricolon]

good article about body text size here: http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2011/10/07/16-pixels-body-co...

[mattmanser → discovr]

That's actually a terrible article about body text. Maybe it has the right conclusion, but it might be wildly wrong.

This seems the most trivially easy thing to A/B test. Does anything less the 16pt cost you revenue?

Simple question, yes/no.

Actual data is so much better than someone's untested opinion which has been shown time and time again to be worthless in real life.

[shmerl → discovr]

Looks better now, but I'd still make the font a bit larger.

That's how it looks in my browser:

http://freeimagehosting.net/newuploads/cyqjo.png

(Firefox 18 / KDE 4.8).

[nezza-_- → shmerl]

Wow, your system has super crappy font rendering IMHO.

[shmerl → nezza-_-]

Not really - it depends on the choice of fonts and their settings. Most sites look good on my system. Occasionally you get such ones, which look weirdly because they rely on some non existent font, and are rendered in fallback mode, using some generic one. If you want to avoid relying on system dependent fonts, use WOFF.

Example (from this site):

    font-family: 'proxima-nova', 'proxima-nova', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;

proxima-nova and Helvetica Neue are not common fonts, so putting them as first with fallback to Helvetica is not the best option, if the font isn't provided as WOFF.