Disclaimer: The views expressed on this site are my own and do not necessarily reflect those of my employers. :) – Manning Krull

Hey, read this! Larger text is more engaging

A topic I end up discussing with various teams every day is font size in digital media — what's best for engagement? And what's our responsibility with regard to accessibility?

I've been promoting my own strong recommendations about minimum font size in digital for years. It's a little strange that the WCAG doesn't prescribe specific minimum font sizes with regard to ADA compliance, so we just have to do the best we can from an accessibility standpoint to ensure we're making our digital materials easy for all users to engage with. That means both users with visual impairments, and those without.

I've encountered a lot of colleagues who are resistant to following accessibility guidelines (which, to be blunt, tells me they shouldn't be working in this industry). A thing that I try to make these people understand is that when we follow guidelines for accessibility, we make our content easier for all users to engage with — not just the ones with visual impairments or other disabilities. The reality is: accessibility = engagement. Larger text means the piece is easier to engage with which means users will spend more time with it, which means increased success for our clients — which is the number one thing we should be focusing on at all times. There is simply no good logical (or ethical) argument against following guidelines for maximum accessibility.

Here's a little experiment I've conducted at various times over the last decade or so...

Hey, read this! Studies show that larger text is generally simply more engaging for users. If your eyes happen to see two blocks of text, one with a small font size and one with a large font size, chances are your eyes and brain are going to automatically start reading the larger text. What was your experience just now? Something I've said for years is that I wish I had the resources to do a huge A/B(/etc) test of this myself! If you work for an agency brand team, or you're a marketing manager for a brand, I challenge you to try it, with as many thousands of users as possible: two (or more) emails, with the exact same content, just with different text sizes — throw a CTA at the bottom and measure the click-throughs for both. My own very small tests of this sort of thing indicate that users are just more comfortable engaging with larger text; it takes less effort for the user and so it's just easier to get them to consume more content. The nice thing is that there's really no downside to using larger text. The main argument I've heard against larger text, from art directors and clients, is that it just looks different from what they've done in the past. ("That looks huge!") When you talk to users, one thing becomes clear: no user will ever complain that the text is too big. They will, however, notice when it's too small, and quickly bounce. As I say constantly: users will not work hard to consume our marketing materials. Let's do everything we can to make the experience effortless for them, to keep them engaging.

What do you think? What did you read first? Now, if you were to actively focus on the text on the left, is it legible for you? The answer is probably yes. But what did your eyes do? Which side is easier to read, or more comfortable to read? Did you end up reading all of column two? Did you read all of column one?

We've all had experiences where we're forced to interact with really small text. This happens all the time with printed information on various products — a recent example for me was some instructions on the back of the packaging for some super glue. So, you may be able to read it, but how is that experience? Pretty annoying, right? Obviously the manufacturer can't just print the instructions a lot bigger; they'd need a much larger surface, and it wouldn't be practical to make the packaging much larger just for that reason. Or they could print a multi-page booklet that accommodates much larger text and include that in the package. Sounds expensive! You can see why they don't do it.

But we're talking about digital right now, and guess what, more space in a digital piece is free, and it's unlimited. Making a webpage or email taller because the text is bigger is a good thing. There's no harm, there's no risk in making a taller document, because users scroll automatically, without even realizing they're doing it.

Some designers think that using smaller text and keeping the document shorter is going to be better for engagement; we're only asking the user to read X screens worth of height! But the opposite is true. Larger text, while naturally resulting in a taller document (let's say two times X), is more engaging, not less. For that super glue, would you rather read one small area of microscopic text, or a few pages of larger text? Which is easier? Which is more comfortable? What we're really talking about here is: which is more accessible for you?

A common reaction that users have to a website (or email, etc) with small text is, "Ugh, I'm not reading this." If it's unpleasant or difficult, and if we don't need to read it (i.e. we can get the same type of info somewhere else), we won't.

If I asked you to take the time to read that whole block of tiny text above — I'd bet good money you didn't — would that feel like something you're happy to do? Or would it feel like a chore?

A couple things I have to correct designers and other colleagues on frequently:

"We're only using tiny text for the unimportant things."

You're still creating a bad user experience for anyone who has a reason to read those things. Just the presence of blocks of tiny text can make a website feel like a bad experience — or, worse, it can feel like we're trying to hide or de-emphasize something because we're not proud of it. It can hurt the credibility of the piece.

"We're making this part tiny because we don't want people to read it; we're just required to include it."

If we're required to include it, then we're required to make it readable for all users. Intentionally (or negligently) making something difficult to read can be perceived as dishonest. Remember, we have an ethical responsibility in the work that we do, and we have our client's reputation to think about.

Remember, accessibility = engagement. And engagement = success.

– Manning

Questions/comments? Feel free to contact me at manning@manningkrull.com. I update these articles pretty frequently — best practices evolve over time as the world of digital quickly changes, and I always welcome insights from others.