Tips to Improve UX Readability: Pros and Cons

Creating great-looking user interfaces is only half the battle in attracting and retaining users' attention. Your design also needs to be readable and understandable. You can have the most appealing interface in the world, but if users struggle to read or understand it, they will quickly become frustrated and leave. ‍

What is UX Readability? 

In a nutshell, readability in UX answers the question of whether all users can easily follow, understand, and clearly recognize the elements of your site.

However, diving into this topic, it's important to understand the difference between readability and legibility. Legibility determines how easily font characters are distinguished and read, or in other words, the visual clarity of text. While readability refers to the complexity of words in written content.

However, from a UX designer's perspective, the definition of readability is broader and refers to the clarity of both text and graphics on the page, how they combine and appear on the page. Improving readability allows the design to keep users engaged or drive them away. 

Good UX readability also means that your product's content is equally accessible to different user groups. For example, 4.5% of the population has color blindness, and 2.2 billion people live with impaired vision. Every designer aware of the importance of readability should consider these points when creating user interfaces. Being able to distinguish good from poor readability is also an important skill. 

How to Tell When a User Interface Is Not Readable?

We strongly recommend testing your prototype for readability before moving on to designing the actual product. Usually, experienced designers can immediately point out fonts or graphics that look horrible. Sometimes it's so obvious that anyone can tell the site's readability could be better. For example, look at the image below – would you want to read it? Personally, I doubt it.

To identify poor readability, you can go through five checkpoints:

• Font size and width. Font imbalance is the first sign of poor readability.
• Line height and width. Lines that are too long, as well as those requiring scrolling or extra effort, lead to poor readability.
• Case. For better readability, it's best to combine uppercase and lowercase letters. 
• Text color. Poor color choice or mismatch with background color immediately worsens readability.
• Contrast. High contrast between font color and background makes text unreadable.

If text readability is poor, it makes sense to redesign. Changes depend on screen size, screen technology, screen contrast, font size, color, and text style. Such optimization can improve readability and user experience overall. But first, let's talk about typography.

The Crucial Role of Fonts in Readability

Fonts are one of the most important factors affecting readability. Typography is the art of arranging letters in text to make writing readable and visually appealing. It's a whole large area in design, so unfortunately there is no single recipe for which fonts to use for excellent readability. 

Some fonts are good for long texts, others for headings and titles. Some fonts work better at small or large sizes, in print or digital formats, and some are simply outdated. Experienced designers always maintain a fine balance between modern trends and user needs.

But it's not just fonts that make your product readable. We've prepared some tips to help you create a better experience for your users.

10 Tips to Improve UX Readability of Your Product or Website

Here are a few tips that will certainly help you enhance readability and legibility. Oddly enough, we'll illustrate them with examples of how readable interfaces should NOT look. Ready? ‍

1. Use fonts wisely. Remember that different fonts work better at different sizes. Avoid overly complex or too popular fonts, as they are everywhere and annoy users. For example, once-popular Gothic fonts or Comic Sans are now out of style and easily noticed by users.
2. Use fonts that are easy to read on your users' screens. This is especially relevant for mobile devices, where screens are much smaller than desktops and you have much less space to present information, so choosing a font is critical.
3. Choose colors that stand out from the background, but avoid too high contrast. Color choice is very important as it allows you to highlight certain information while de-emphasizing other things.
4. Maintain visual hierarchy. To make text easier to read on each screen, use headings and subheadings, as well as images and graphics.
5. Keep line length short enough, so that users don't have to scroll horizontally while reading a line of text (ideally no more than 70 characters per line).
6. Don't use too many fonts on each screen – no more than one or two.
7. Choose a font with uppercase and lowercase letters and avoid the all-caps block effect.
8. Noisy backgrounds can make even the best font unreadable. Be very careful with video backgrounds, as they can have the same noise effect.
9. Spacing between text blocks is equally important. Cluttered content blocks frustrate users. Give them some space to better absorb the information presented.
10. Don't forget about users. Consider their education, reading skills, level of interest, and the environment in which they read. Also, keep accessibility in mind – ensure your product's design can be perceived beyond just color, that text can be read by users with less-than-perfect vision, and that it's accessible to elderly users and other groups.

In short, maintain clarity, watch spacing around text, use legible fonts and font sizes, and choose the most appropriate backgrounds for them. You'll know readability is good as soon as you see it. 

Conclusion

In today's digital era, when written and graphic content are increasingly mixed, and users are overwhelmed by the number of interfaces they interact with daily, good UX readability is more important than ever. 

Readability is only part of the equation for a successful product. But it's what users see first. Make everything else work in its favor.