Text size, style, blinking elements and Readability
Items that flash or blink at a certain rate can cause seizures and should be avoided. They can also be very distracting and make other elements on a page hard to read. Complex small text and serif fonts can also make text harder to read for some people with cognitive learning disabilities and specific learning differences including dyslexia. The language used needs to be understandable for all users including those who have been deaf since birth or for whom English is not their first language. (W3C WCAG 2.0 2.3 and W3C WCAG 2.0 3.1).
Testing Techniques
These techniques may be used to perform the test.
Method
Quick Overview Manual checks plus Accessibar to gauge effect of users' possible changes to fonts and colours. Use of Trace's PEAT where necessary.
Criteria for this Test
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Any blinking or flashing content. Site unreadable. |
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Variable between serif and sans-serif. Fonts smaller than 10pt. Overly complex language used. |
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Some serif text. Majority of text is size 10pt. |
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Sans-serif fonts used in all body content (excludes headings). Regular font size (10/12pt) throughout and reasonable layout. |
