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Large Print Graphics for Older Eyes?
random_nickname asks: "My lovely wife is a Graphic Designer with a small company which specializes in custom-made wine labels. She is re-designing the current site, to bring the code up-to-date and a little more shnazzy. Her boss is insisting that, due to their primary market - the elderly - she needs to create overly 'large-print' graphics, to make the site easier to browse for that demographic. My wife feels that this is unnecessary due to resolution control and monitor sizes, etc.. Are there sites out there that currently employ over-sized graphics for the elderly and has it made a difference in business? Is there a real need for this kind of solution?"
The other thing you have to remember is that the vast majority of the elderly users don't have 21" monitors. Most probably have 14-15" CRTs, because that's what came with their $300 computer that their kids gave them for Christmas/Channukah/Kwanzaa/whatever. Also, most don't know how to change the default font sizes, and large print could really make your site stand out. If they struggle to read your competitors' sites, but find yours easy to read, and intuitive to navigate, they will visit your site more often.
Design on a 15" monitor, with 1024x768 resolution, and make the site easy to read from about 6' away, and you should be just about right. It will make a difference, and as long as the layout is intuitive, it will bring more people to your site. Web design for most sites out there is horrible, and many elderly find it hard to understand (hell, many of college kids have trouble with some).
In other words, increase the print size a little, but don't forget that the #1 thing that will help the older members of the population (and in fact younger people, too) is an intuitive interface and navigation. Also, no matter what you do, some people are going to need help, so make sure that the contact information is easy to find, and be sure to list a customer service phone number. A person that has trouble with a good web page will be more likely to also have trouble emailing a question, so why force them (like too many other sites do)?
--That's the point of being root, you can do anything you want, even if it's stupid.
Though my vision problems usually occur while drinking the wine, not when buying it. :)
But seriously, as a wine lover I really don't like these new-fangled labels the wine makers are coming up with. Give me something classic, you know, something with fonts that take a while decipher. And don't get me started on artificial corks. They might be better in all ways, but they are still wrong! And the next guy who tries to sell wine in a novelty bottle is going to need help from a proctologist to remove that bottle from his person.
OK, so that was completely off-topic and doesn't address your question at all, but at least it'll give you an idea of the level of logic you can expect from your target audience.
People couldn't type. We realized: Death would eventually take care of this.
First, why ask /.? Wouldn't this be better posed to a group that knows something about graphic design? IANAGD (graphic designer), but I'm currently studying digital design and reading books on the subject. The following is basically lifted from > type < for the internet and other digital media by Veruschka Gotz and the Web Style Guide.
The problem with graphic designers used to working with paper is that the lower resolution of the screen severely reduces the legibility of fonts. You basically have to take off one or two points to get a paper-equivalent font size. Since the wife's employer KNOWS that the elderly tend to buy his wine, it behooves her to 1. obey the desires of the client and 2. design for the audience.
I would think a nice 12pt sans or a 14pt serif would do for the body copy. Be sure to keep the lines short and up the leading (css2 property: line-height) to at least 120% and possibly up the letter spacing (letter-spacing). The resulting text takes up a lot of screen space but is considerably easier to read.
Actually, pt works just fine, try it out. You specify pt sizes for everything, and it'll work.
No it won't.
Whatdahell's this 'Ouch!' shit?? You ain't even come close ta be'in hurt yet, Woose! Parent post is actualy about half right; very rare on /. when the subject touches on a human reality.
Yes, I hit 60 a couple of months back! Yes, I've been seriously visualy impaired since an encounter between my slow head and a fast landing gear strut resulted in assorted minor trauma and detached the retina in my right eye.
But I am NOT and never will be the doddering, half-senile object of the maggot-gagging stereotypes put forth in damn near every post in this thread.
And the ONE thing that pisses me off even more than the general run of fools, it's when some HALF WIT LOP screws up on their job AND SLOWS ME DOWN! Which is the exact case when I click on 'LARGER' and have a third of the page vanish sideways. While it's only rarely enough to provoke spambombing the PUKES so that no-one can spend money there, THAT IS A BUSINESS THAT WILL NEVER GET .01 from me!
Thelma, I'm not making ANY deals.