What Is Your Text Preference?

by Lynda Thain, Message Digital Design Ltd

The UK-based web design agency, Message, has recently launched an online survey to establish how users prefer their text displayed.

Message found a distinct lack of hard facts on the subject, and rather than rely on anecdotal evidence and received wisdom from the book publishing world, they've launched www.textprefs.com.

They've created an easy-to-use application which allows users to adjust an on-screen display until they find the text that is easiest to read.  They can adjust the font, size, line height and column width - the major contributing factors in legibility.

Once the user is happy with their display, they submit their text preferences to the Message database, which will start to build up a large and detailed statistical picture.

The findings will be published in a report by Message this summer, and will aim to provide hard facts and answer some fundamental questions about usability on the web.  They see this report being of value not just to their clients and customers but to web users at large.

To participate in the survey go to http://www.textprefs.com.