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May 9, 2006

5 Type Turn-Offs that Are Exit Only

ME Liz Strauss wrote this at 8:53 am

I’m Only 1 Reader

Spend enough time as a publisher and when you read for fun, you can’t help seeing publishing things . . . if they’re great I comment on them. Reinforce good behavior is what I learned in teachers’ school. If they’re not good typography, I try to overlook them and keep reading. If I simply cannot, usually I just move on shaking my head. I go back to my own blog to make sure that I’m not doing the same thing.

YET when I see the same type issues happening from one blog to another, I think folks can’t see how the type looks and feels from this side of the computer. So I’ve started taking notes on what it’s like to be the reader. Of course, I’m only one reader, but I AM one reader. I’m one who will come back or I won’t.

5 Type Turn-Offs

Type turn-offs are typographic issues that get between me and what I’m trying to read. They’re like pot holes in the highway. They get me looking for the exit and a new road. These type turn-offs guarantee I’ll take the exit ramp and won’t come back to read a blog.

  • 83 typefaces and type fonts — ooo, oww, ouch! Help me, please. My eyes don’t know where to go or how to focus. Ever notice how templates stay within 1 or 2 type fonts? Designers know that it’s less distracting to keep the number low and simple.
  • 72 colors — there aren’t that many that go together and colors are even more noisy than type fonts. End of story. Same reasoning as above.
  • vibrating type on dark backgrounds — You might not be aware, but colors can vibrate on dark backgrounds, particularly red on black or dark blue. Please be careful how you combine your colors — motion sickness could occur, if you’re not. Thank you. I mean that. Motion sickness and migraines are related.
  • too many text sets that float apart — the big picture really should seem to be three or five major elements that have smaller parts making them up.
  • type so wide I need to drive to read across and then need to drive back to find the next line — gas prices are too high for me to read your blog.

These are the first five type turn-offs I found while surfing for less than 10 minutes. It’s sad to see blogs with these problems because the problems are so annoying, yet easily fixed. Type plays such a crucial part in curb appeal and branding. Type issues are “reverse blog promotion.” Type turn-offs can send readers away before we take the time to take in a word of well-crafted, quality content.

I bet you have your own type turn-offs. What type issues ensure that you won’t read a blog?

–ME “Liz” Strauss

Related articles
Blog Review Checklist
Blog Promotion: Checking Out Curb Appeal
Audience is Your Destination
I’ll be adding this post to the NEW BLOGGER PAGE

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19 Comments to “5 Type Turn-Offs that Are Exit Only”

  1. May 9th, 2006 at 9:12 am
    Joe said

    Hey Liz,

    Mine is less type than hype.
    I really hate things that talk to me when I’m trying to read.
    If a site has any talking heads or the like, I can’t X out fast enough.
    They are the biggest turn off to a site I can think of, bar none.

    Joe

  2. May 9th, 2006 at 9:14 am
    Why My Blog Stinks » Turn People Off If You Can said

    […] I’ll copy and paste half the list but go over and read through them. You may find a couple things you never knew could annoy a person. I agree with her on this one. There are a ton of blogs out there that are eye soarers and you need to make sure you aren’t making people heading for the exit signs. Here are few but read the entire article here. 83 typefaces and type fonts — ooo, oww, ouch! Help me, please. My eyes don’t know where to go or how to focus. Ever notice how templates stay within 1 or 2 type fonts? Designers know that it’s less distracting to keep the number low and simple. […]

  3. May 9th, 2006 at 9:17 am
    ME Strauss said

    Oh YEAH–I agree and MUSIC. I don’t want other folks picking my music. Thank you very much. I’m often already listening to something in the background and I find it very jarring to hear something else audio come on — at first I think my computer is malfunctioning.

    ooooh that makes me unhappy.

    Great point, Joe.

    Ladies and gentlemen, please turn it down.

  4. May 9th, 2006 at 9:31 am
    Jack Yan said

    I, too, dislike it when there are too many typefaces, and even type sizes. There is one blog out there (which shall remain nameless, largely because I have forgotten its name) that changed its type size each paragraph. Great content, but hard to read. Another has a pop-up, probably from someone who has legitimately placed an ad on his page, but that makes me scared to visit it in the fear that it’s spyware.

  5. May 9th, 2006 at 9:50 am
    Steve said

    Personally I don’t like blogs, websites, news sites or any sites that have a black background. Not sure why. I think black background with white text is the best way to go if you must have a black background.

    I like white! :)

  6. May 9th, 2006 at 9:52 am
    ME Strauss said

    That’s perceptive of you, Steve,
    Large blocks of reversed out type are harder to read.
    :)

  7. May 9th, 2006 at 10:07 am
    Tammy Lenski said

    Liz,

    Your list is mine, too. I’d echo what someone else said audio streams that start automatically when the site is loaded. And I’d add type size that is soooo small I have to magnify my screen settings several times–and I have 20/20 vision!

  8. May 9th, 2006 at 10:09 am
    ME Strauss said

    Hi Tammy,
    Yep I left that one out. I just click on by that tiny type. I used to adjust my monitor and will for someone I really want to read — but not for someone I’ve never read before.

  9. May 9th, 2006 at 11:22 am
    Easton Ellsworth said

    I don’t like it when text that looks like link text isn’t, and vice versa. That problem occurs a lot when people go berserk on the colors and have different colors for everything from headlines to bylines to punchlines!

  10. May 9th, 2006 at 11:26 am
    ME Strauss said

    Yep, I know what you mean, Easton.
    I read somewhere that that is the reason that you don’t get a choice to underline in most blogging platforms because underline is reserved for showing links. People find a way around that though–Don’t they?

    We need consistent visuals cues that fall back so that we can concentrate on what the words mean, not what they’re doing. :)

  11. May 9th, 2006 at 12:00 pm
    Joe said

    Hey Liz,

    Not related to this at all… Your Blog Letting me be…
    The page cannot be accessed by readers. You must go into Blogger and Publish a post and Republish your whole Blog for it to take.

    I know, because I just went through it with my Blogs on Blogger.

    Thought you might like to know.

    Joe

  12. May 9th, 2006 at 12:01 pm
    ME Strauss said

    Thanks Joe,
    I’ll do that now!

  13. May 9th, 2006 at 12:49 pm
    Steve said

    I like clean and simple templates… :)

    Did I already say that once??

  14. May 9th, 2006 at 12:50 pm
    ME Strauss said

    No, Steve, you didn’t say that.
    You said that you liked white. You might have meant it when you said THAT.

    liz

  15. May 9th, 2006 at 12:57 pm
    Steve said

    Yes I do like white, thanks for reminding me. :)

    What irritates me are those ads that popout and cover content. I won’t go back EVER, they offend me…

  16. May 9th, 2006 at 12:59 pm
    ME Strauss said

    Hey Steve,
    Don’t forget the the PopUNDERs they are just as much of a pain . . . I think so anyway.
    Liz

  17. May 9th, 2006 at 1:03 pm
    Steve said

    Yes popunders are offensive not in an annoying way but in a deceitful way. Are people trying to trick me into something?? hmm….

    Popups are like saying this to you, “hey over here! over here! click on me! Yo… don’t you see me? Click on me you fool.”

    Popunders are saying, “Sssshhh… I hope he clicks on me and doesn’t notice… sssshhh… I think I fooled him..”

    uh-uh Never come back to those sites.

  18. May 9th, 2006 at 1:05 pm
    ME Strauss said

    Yet the folks who sell them to bloggers say you do click on them, and that you will come back and do it again.

  19. January 15th, 2007 at 6:00 am
    Liz Strauss at Successful Blog - Above the Fold: 11 Things Right about Escape from Cubicle Nation said

    […] Related articles Frosted Mini-Wheats Design that Hooks Readers Blog Design Checklist 5 Type Turn-Offs that Are Exit Only Blog Promotion: Checking Out Curb Appeal […]

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