Are Design Fads Ruining Your Blog or Web Site?

Even the most talented graphic designers and web designers tend to be slaves to fashion. Seemingly unable to resist the latest design trends, they often follow them without thinking--even when doing that makes blogs and web sites difficult or uncomfortable to read.

The secret is that design courses teach them to look at the layout without reading the text or headings. That's a great strategy for checking the overall design, but if carried too far, it leads to unreadable pages--in print or on the web. They simply are not looking at how easy or hard it is to read the text, links, and subheadings.

Many people seem to assume that being flashy or fashionable is the heart of good design. But the real purpose of design, especially on the Internet, is readability.

Research has shown that on the Internet great content, not stylish design, is what people search for and act upon. Web sites, blogs, and other publications should be, first of all, easy to read.

Site visitors decide in just 5 to 8 seconds whether to read the content or leave the site. You must draw them into the content right way for the site to accomplish its purpose. That means the text must be easy to read.

Black Type on White Is Still the Best. The designer of the New York Times, Rolling Stone, and other world-famous publications, Roger Black, found that if you want people to actually read what you write, the best color combination is black on white, with touches of red. Extensive (and expensive) research conducted for newspapers and magazines proves that he is correct.

That doesn't mean white type on a black background, either. Reversed type, as it is called, must be larger and bolder than black-on-white type to be easily read. Even then, it is harder to read than plain old black on white.

Gray Type Is Too Hard to Read. Lately many web sites and blog designers are using gray type. Their employers or clients don't seem to realize how much that hurts readership. They have no idea how much business they are losing because of this unfortunate design fad.