Making Text Readable

The following rules of thumb make text more readable on the page, whether printed or on screen:

• Use sans serif fonts for headings and decorative text; use serif fonts for body text. Serif fonts are generally more readable for large bodies of text—this is why books are usually typeset in them.
• Use left-aligned body text with a ragged-right margin. Justified text tends to be harder to scan than ragged right-text, because the reader's eye has to compensate for spaces that vary in width. Center- or right-aligned text also tends to be harder to read, since the beginning of the lines don't necessarily line up on the page.
• Avoid ALL-CAPS. Using all-caps deprives the reader of some very important information: the "shape" of the word.
• Use type contrasts consistently, and don't overuse them. Using more than one or two types of "specialness" for text simultaneously—such as using Small-Caps, Italic, Bold, and Underline all at once—actually reduces the text's uniqueness and effectiveness. Also, use type contrasts consistently to help convey the function, structure, and meaning of the text. For example, make sure that similar headings are always typographically identical and have similar whitespace and layout.
• Don't present lines that are too long. Lines that stretch too far across the page or screen are hard to scan. If you have to use long lines, add more whitespace between the lines (leading).
• Use readable fonts. Times New Roman isn't a particularly readable font in print or on the screen; the letters are very narrow (it was designed for a newspaper, after all). When designing for the computer screen, consider using fonts like Georgia and Verdana, which were designed specifically for the medium.