[fodkodrasz]

The cause is you got used to comically small text. That site is fine readable size (unlike the interface we are exchanging opinions on). Though it is still readable on 80% zoom, slightly eye straining on 70%, but it is far from oversized.

[chrismorgan]

I consider the reasonable range of body text font-sizes to be 16–20px, but I recommend 16–18px. (On small screens, you should exclusively use 16px; the larger values are for larger screens where it can be warranted and I would almost always recommend it.) This is what just about everything is calibrated against, so you cause trouble by going much out of this range.

HN uses 12px. At 25% below the range, this is significantly undersized, and 120% scaling is about the minimum I can tolerate (though I don’t find myself going up to 133% for some reason, which I might have thought I would do, but I decided I didn’t like it).

The site in question uses 25.3px. At 26.5% above my proposed range (and 40% above my recommendation), this is significantly oversized.

If your eyes are straining at 70%, which reduces it to 17.71px, something’s wrong, probably in your setup—because that’s generally still at least 10% larger than all the rest of the text in your OS! (Linux/Sway: Firefox UI seems to be largely 14.667px with a little 15.4px, and this 14.667px seems visually to match other apps.)

No, creata is correct. This site’s text is very unreasonably and troublesomely large, and even shrinking it to 80% leaves it very mildly oversized.

(The lead paragraph is 32.2px, which does reach the point I would happily describe as comically large. The quote a couple later is 21.85px.)

[Izkata]

I need to put it at 70% while leaning back to not strain my eyes. 40% is when it finally gets smaller than here (which I find just right) and could become eye-straining for me in the other direction.