, , , 7 Ways To Make Your Website More Readable

Content is king in website design. If visitors to your website can't read what you put there because of the way you've presented it, they will quickly leave and not come back. Therefore you have to make your website easy on the eye, if you want people to spend time reading your content. By following seven basic rules you can make your website instantly more readable.

1. Text colours

Don't use dark colour text on dark backgrounds. For example, red text on dark blue or red on black are horrendously difficult to read. If you are doing colour text, make sure there is high contrast between the text and the background. Dark text on a light background is easier to read then light text on a dark background.

2. Images

Be very very careful with background images. If you are going to use them, there's a danger that the background will be too dark to read the text properly. Do a bit of work with your photo-editor to reduce the depth of colour of the image - make it pastel.

3. Limit the length of text lines

Don't make lines of text too long. Think how printed media compose their pages. They use columns and so should you. Keep the column width to a maximum of 600 pixels.

4. Restrict your page width

Page width is a different situation. A width limit of 1000 pixels is good for the standard 1024×768 pixel monitor. Fit columns into this. It should be possible to read the page without having to use the scroll bar to scan across the width of the page.

5. Capitals

Do not use capital letters for all of your text. In fact, it's best to avoid capital letters altogether, except where the rules of grammar demand them, e.g. first letter of a sentence, proper nouns, etc. Long strings of capital letters are harder to read than lower case.

6. Exclamation marks

Do not go overboard with exclamation marks! They are usually unnecessary, and there is no reason whatsoever for three of them. Littering your text with exclamation marks is irritating to the reader, and doesn't really help you get your message across.

A very limited exception to the above is for headline-style text, where you want to grab the reader's attention for a special offer or something like that. In this case you could have 4 or 5 words in capitals with exclamation marks. But keep this usage to an absolute minimum.

7. Spell-checking and proof-reading

Use a spell checker before you publish your page on the internet. This means you must type your text into a word processor such as Word or Open Office. Nothing is worse than a page full of spelling errors. But don't rely exclusively on a spell-checker. They are clever but not infallible. As a final check, get someone else to proof-read it. You, having written it, will be "blind" to any errors.

Following the tips above will ensure that visitors to your website have a good reading experience.