Minimum web page font size

What do you think it is?

[Trenton]

Hi

I want to recommend to people what is the absolute minimum font size they should be using on their website - I reckon about 11px.

Some web users don't realise that they can adjust the font size so I don't want it to be too small when the page loads up.

I've been hunting around the web for info about this but I can't find any...

Anyone know of any studies about this or have any thoughts of their own?

[ukgimp]

Trenton

Use relative fonts if you can.

Aids accessibility.

[webmasterworld.com...]

[seeber01]

I use relative font sizes, with "small" being the default size, it approximates 12px (best I can figure anyway) on my computer 1024x768 resolution 17" screen. I've checked it at different resolutions and like how it looks across all of them. Originally I tried "medium" but felt it was oversized.

BTW I have poor eyesight so have a tendency to enlarge fonts on sites that go any smaller.

Debs

[pete_m]

seeber01

One thing to watch out for: IE has a different idea of what "small" is, compared to every other browser!

If you're specifying CSS font sizes by name (i.e. "small", "x-small", etc) IE works one step down from other browsers. IE "small" is actually "medium" in other browsers, "x-small" is actually "small", and so on.

Some sites that have average-sized text in IE will have quite small text in the other browsers for this reason.

Personally I use percentages and EMs, as browser support is pretty much consistent.

[Soso]

Hi Trenton,
In my opinion, you should not recommend that at all, since the idea of setting up fixed font size is itself bad. For people with bad eyesight, for example, maybe 18px will be the absolute minimum, and 11px is absolutely unreadable for them. Moreover, in Windows for example, the actual font size will depend on screen resolution, system font setting, etc.
Webpage is something principaly different from printed text - in webpage, all the formating options (size of fonts, boxes, etc) are only *recommendations* - it is (and should be) up to the client software+hardware how the page will be displayed to the user.
Therefore, the most logical approach would be to leave the "ordinary text" size intact, so the default browser setting will be used, and then you will specify font size for titles/subtitles/descriptions as a percentage value. That is what I would recommend to your people.There is no such thing as "absolute minimum font size".

[rogerd]

Trenton, there are a couple of schools of thought. The accessibility and fluid layout school will tell you to be sure that users can adapt your layout to their needs - visual limitations or preferences, variable window sizes, etc. Make everything relative, let the users decide how your site should look. There's certainly merit in this approach.

Graphic designers, though, will want to control the appearance of every element. They'd often be happiest if the web page was one fixed image that no browser could change. A talented graphic designer can often come up with stunning pages, but these often suffer when viewed in a different way than the designer intended, e.g., at higher resolution that shrinks everything. I've seen some fonts that are so small as to be unreadable - clearly the designer was working under different conditions.

Striking the right balance is the tricky part. ;)

[rogerd]

To add one additional thought, there are fonts designed for high readability in small sizes. Microfonts.com has some free downloads, for example (though they'd prefer you buy their paid fonts, I'm sure). These rare fonts aren't going to be useful for body text, but would be appropriate for designing images like nav buttons that require small but readable type. Be sure you design at actual size, though, as you'll lose the benefits of these exact pixel-sized fonts if you resize the images in your graphics program.

And, of course, don't get carried away - small fonts will be REALLY small on a high res display. And sharp or not, they'll still be difficult to read - be sure to use those ALT tags!)