Text formatting for best usability.

Usability of a website consists of several factors, such as color usage, pages logic, animations and text. Text brings the biggest quantity of information to the site visitors, but it is only perceived well if formatted correctly.

Here are 5 rules of good formatting that will help you to turn your texts into a weapon of conversion.

Rule 1: Avoid using Times New Roman. Serif fonts don't really look really good on the web. They are much more readable when they are printed. Maybe in some case a font like Georgia or Garamond could work for your design, but Times New Roman never looks well. Rule 2: Don’t overformat text. If you are a beginner you may want to try out all formatting options available. Isn't it cool to make your text stand out by using bold, italics, font sizes, color... All at once! Sorry, it isn't. Too much formatting only makes things worse. When you overformat text, it gets hard to people to select important information. Their attention spreads and they can't focus on whatever you would like them to focus on. Rule 3: That goes double for links. Links firstly need to be easily identified as links. When you remove the bottom underline you are taking a risk that people won't recognize them. At the same time, they need to blend in with the rest of the text. They shouldn't stand out so much that it's impossible for the reader to focus on other parts of the page. The formatting should also not interfere with the text itself – adding things like dashed borders or bright background colors can do that.

Don’t overformat text.

Rule 4: Don’t center text. Centered text doesn't usually look good on web. It is especially bad for paragraphs when the eye has to jump back and forth to read each line. This puts stress on the reader and makes it more difficult to read and understand your text. Rule 5: Make sure your text is easy to read. Make sure that your text is easy for people to read. And that doesn't just mean that they can make out the letters and understand what the word says. It should be easy and comfortable to read your text, not difficult and straining to the eyes. Nobody wants to read text that gives them a headache!