help with fonts families and sizes

It doesn't matter if you do all the error checking in the world, or if you have the most beautiful graphics, if your site or application design isn't usable, it's not going to do well. Get input and advice on usability and user interface issues here.

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raghavan20
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help with fonts families and sizes

Post by raghavan20 »

I hv built sites but always had this problem when it comes to choosing fonts and their sizes.

I am looking for suggestions from you guys on fonts that shd be used with normal text on <body>, headings and at other special occasions.
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Chris Corbyn
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Post by Chris Corbyn »

General tips...

Use clean, easy-to-read fonts for the body and anything for navigation (i.e. Verdana, arial, tahoma, times, courier, sans-serif).

Always, always, always provide multiple fonts in order of preference... it's unlikely that your first chosen font is available on all machines.

Don't specify font size in pt, use em (I assume you're using CSS - if not, start now ;) ). Size in pt are rendered differently across the various operating systems and if it look good on windows it may be too small on OSX or Linux... I tend to go for 0.8em for the main body but it depends on the font.

Try to choose colors which contrast (nicely) with the background.

Try to make obvious which text is for navigation and which is not (underline, color, bold etc).
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Chris Corbyn
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Post by Chris Corbyn »

Moved to UI Design/Usability
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raghavan20
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Post by raghavan20 »

Thanks for your suggestions, I recently changed to the font family you specified. Thats actually a good one and it gave a different look to the entire site. As you told, I have changed from px to em's. As you guessed, I am working with css for a long time.

Do you know any easy to learn tutorials on making curved - edged tables, simple menus and tutorials for using divs instead of tables?
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nielsene
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Post by nielsene »

A List Apart has great tutorials for curved or arbitrary edge divs and general interesting use of CSS.

I especially recommend the following articles there: Generally speaking I find its worth reading just about every item in ther CSS or Design categories. Often starting from the oldest article and working forward as the articles generally build upon the techniques used in previous ones.
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