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by dredmorbius 1376 days ago
I'd give a strong agree to this.

For years I've taken to restyling websites, largely to make them easier to read and focus on. Starting with simply eliminating extraneous elements (social-media link-litter, registrations sign-ups, etc.), to re-specifying fonts, line-heights, and the like. What I notice is that even with only a few deletions or tweaks my mind starts settling far more at ease.

Using an e-ink tablet / book-reader for the past year and a half (see comments elsewhere in this thread), I've become highly attuned to how much typography matters both for the Web and in print. Whilst Web design is a dumpster fire, there are a tremendous number of poorly-typeset books as well (though as a ratio the latter seems a smaller set of the whole), some of which I simply cannot stand to read.

Web content generally reads better in monochrome (though some contextual details may be lost especially in graphics relying on colour). Animation is glaringly annoying, especially with high-quality display settings (more faithful text reproduction leads to slower refreshes and a flashing on animated elements). Poor text, typography, and colour schemes (anything reducing text/background contrast) are similarly highly evident, and kill readability.

Conventions of typography have evolved over centuries, largely based on the ergonomics of humans reading text. Violate them with extreme caution, you're all but certain to make things worse rather than better.

Great handle, BTW.