Are Web and Blog Design Fads Costing You Money?

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. They do that even when it hidden wiki their 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 on the Internet has shown that it is great content, not stylish design, that site visitors 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. Roger Black, the designer of the New York Times, Rolling Stone, and other world-famous publications, 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.