Internet is Becoming Unreadable Because of a Trend Towards Lighter, Thinner Fonts (telegraph.co.uk)

An anonymous reader writes: The internet is becoming unreadable because of a trend towards lighter and thinner fonts, making it difficult for the elderly or visually-impaired to see words clearly, a web expert has found. Where text used to be bold and dark, which contrasted well with predominantly white backgrounds, now many websites are switching to light greys or blues for their type. Award winning blogger Kevin Marks, founder of Microformats and former vice president of web services at BT, decided to look into the trend after becoming concerned that his eyesight was failing because he was increasingly struggling to read on screen text. He found a 'widespread movement' to reduce the contrast between the words and the background, with tech giants Apple, Google and Twitter all altering their typography. True black on white text has a contrast ratio of 21:1 -- the maximum which can be achieved. Most technology companies agree that it is good practice for type to be a minimum of 7:1 so that the visually-impaired can still see text. But Mr Marks, found that even Apple's own typography guidelines, which recommended 7:1 are written in a contrast ratio of 5.5:1.

Comments

Found the Windows user!

[Anonymous Coward]

Windows users always think higher resolution means smaller fonts. Proper operating systems automatically render the fonts based on the monitor's DPI.

Re:If you can't see the text

[Joce640k]

Or use the "Read Easily" addon for Firefox - flip the bird at all those "designers".

The "designers" won't be happy until the page appears to contain no information at all - 100% clean and clear.

Re:And... NO CONTRAST

[TechyImmigrant]

Jesus H. That's like the anorexic fashion show of editors. There's nothing of substance there.

VIM: Whatever my terminal is, which is white on black.
Emacs: Whatever my terminal is, which is white on black.
Notepad++: Black on white.
BBedit: Black on white.

That covers all of them I think, over Linux, Windows and MacOs. Nothing else matters.