Web typography: what to get right first

Every audit we run turns up some version of this. If you only fix one thing about web typography this quarter, make it the first item below.

The measurable part of design is whether people can find what they came for and act on it without hesitating. The practical test is whether someone new to the project could tell, in a minute, that it had been handled.

Start here

Body text below 16px is a readability problem, not a style choice. Getting it slightly wrong is survivable. Ignoring it entirely is not. Write the reasoning down alongside the decision, because the reasoning is what changes first.

Then this

Line length between 50 and 75 characters is easiest to read. That sounds obvious written down. It is still the thing most often skipped. The teams that stay on top of it are the ones who put it on a calendar rather than a wish list.

Eventually

Two typefaces is plenty for almost any site. It is worth being explicit about, because assumptions differ quietly. Write the reasoning down alongside the decision, because the reasoning is what changes first.

How to tell if yours is fine

Design decisions are the ones clients feel most confident arguing about, which makes it worth separating taste from evidence early. Three things worth confirming about web typography before you move on:

• Someone can say what the current setup is without going to look
• Line length between 50 and 75 characters is easiest to read — and you know whether that is true here
• There is a way to tell whether the last change to this helped

If you want a second opinion on how yours is set up, ask.