Ask HN: Why do websites have small fonts? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Why do websites have small fonts?

5 pointsnarimiran8 comments

I haven't done any scientific measurements, but my experience with the sites which I visit and which are usually shared here is something like this:

* 80% have painfully small font-size: I need to view the site at 120%-140% zoom to be easily readable

* 15% have ok font-size: I can read it at 100% zoom, unless I'm tired (then 120% zoom will usually do the trick)

* 5% have large enough font-size which I can read regardless of my tiredness

Ok, some sites haven't changed their design in 10+ years, but I see the same when people here share posts from their personal sites, written recently. You would expect those people to "keep up with the technology" and care about readability.

How come the small font-sizes are so prevalent? Is there some reason I'm not aware of why people don't use larger font-sizes?

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You are not alone:

https://eggplant.pro/blog/make-things-easier-to-read-with-ac...

The web is made by children hunched over macbooks in coffee shops and open offices.

If you can't read 8pt Helvetica, maybe it's time to give up the web and take up bridge.

I have that problem on desktop but not on mobile for some reason. That said, I generally use my browser’s reader mode in both contexts anyway because so many sites choose unergonomic font families.

Have you ever had a vision exam? My vision is good enough to get by without corrective lenses for almost any other activity, but they make a world of difference when reading on a screen all day, especially if you have even mild astigmatism.

> Have you ever had a vision exam?

Hehe, I thought somebody might ask that.

Yes, I have astigmatism and I wear my glasses when working on a computer.

> I generally use my browser’s reader mode

Reader mode is great but it can't be used on all pages. Also, it cures the symptom, not the cause.

I'm really puzzled why improved readability is not a concern for content creators and it basically boils down (based on the answers I received so far) to: "well, you can zoom in or use reader mode, websites are ok the way they are currently".

My issue isn't with font size, it's with websites that are unnecessarily thin. For some reason, especially with blogs, there's a habit of reducing the width of the text to a quarter of the screen width.

> there's a habit of reducing the width of the text to a quarter of the screen width

This I can understand and support.

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Intermezzo:

First off, if you're having your browser take your whole screen, "you're doing it wrong", aka here is my tip: Assuming 1920x1080px screen resolution, using 2/3 of its width (~1260px) should be enough for the most of the pages, and the remaining 1/3 of your screen you can use for other stuff you need (IRC, chat window, music player, etc.).

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Back to the original point:

The reason why this "small width" is happening is because of readability: extra long lines (anything over 100 characters) are hard to read.

But larger font-sizes would please both general-you (people who want larger width) and general-me (people who want larger font-sizes): I would be able to read the text without zooming in, and the same amount of characters per line would now make lines wider.

Isnt that issue totally fluid? I do not even know what zoom-level I am on.

There you have it. You have wrong browser if it does not allow zoomin in and out at will. This browser is Google Chrome.

> You have wrong browser if it does not allow zoomin in and out at will.

Yes, my browser allows zoomin in and out at will, but that's not the point.

My question was: why in the large majority of the cases I have to do that, why isn't "zoomed in" (by using larger font-size) by default?

Also, some sites don't change the width when I zoom in, so that basically means I can have either unreadable text or readable poetry (4-5 words per line).

In Chrome you can set minimum font size, I have 10, default is 7.

Also I have default font "Crete Round", which is particularly readable and visually pleasing. I read all my Ebooks in Crete Round too.

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