 |
| • |
Labels for menu items, buttons, and tabs should use book title capitalization, that is each word should be capitalized unless it is an article or preposition. (Labels on forms however should use sentence style capitalization, capitalizing only the first word of the label.) |
|
| • |
Stick with fonts that most users have. Don't use more than 3 fonts on any page. |
|
| • |
Avoid the use of more than 2 or 3 colors (plus white); use bold and italic sparingly and avoid underlining plain text (people often mistake underlined plain text as a link). |
|
| • |
Minimize use of textured backgrounds. |
|
| • |
Avoid using all capital letters. |
|
| • |
Smaller type encourages focused viewing behavior; people spend more time reading the words, while larger type promotes lighter scanning. |
|
| • |
Sans-serif fonts are more easily readable on computer screens. Avoid overly decorative fonts. |
|
| • |
Readers look at text and headlines first, not images. |
|
| • |
Shorter paragraphs perform better than longer ones. Long blurbs discourage reading. |
|
| • |
Use short paragraphs, descriptive headings, subheadings and bullets to make pages easy to read. |
|
| • |
Provide text equivalents for all non-text site elements (audio, video transcripts, alt text, etc.). |
|
| • |
Make sure text is in printable color (black on a B&W printer). |
|
| • |
Do not use red and yellow; it causes eye strain. |
|
| • |
Use a high contrast text-to-background color; black on white is optimal. |
|
| • |
Use a font size of at least 10pt. |
|
| • |
Do not use all capital letters. |
Roy Zornow
MS Word version 
