A Frog in the Valley

Had some feedback about my redesign (a small tweak on the superb hemingway wordpress theme)… I got some great look, nifty and slick comments. I also received two it’s hard to read! emails. Here is my quick tutorial on solving this issue for A Frog in the Valley and most other websites designed using CSS.

First, use a browser that makes changing font size an easy shortcut. In Firefox, it’s the control key and the “+” sign (or command key a Mac keyboard). That should help a bit as a first step. I usually pump-up the font size a notch or two on most sites, I plan on reading web pages ’till I am 102 years old, I take care of the eyes behind my glasses…

The other option, to be used in combination with the first top, is to install the firefox web developer toolbar. It has a nifty shortcut, control + shift + “s” that strips out the stylesheets, effectively rendering the page on a white background with white text and your default browser font. Works great on “designy” sites too, if they are CSS based.

These won't help on sites designed in flash (it’s one of the reasons I don't like flash sites) and in sites where the font sized is fixed if youare using internet explorer (maybe IE7 is better in this regard, I don't know).

BTW, I followed some tips I got from Harry about ad placements and I doubled my clickthru rate for adsense (key idea : wrap content with ads) while still keeping a good balance and visual distinction between editorial content and ads (well, I think).

If things keeps this course, with 10$ per months in ad revenue I will be able to buy a cheap mp3 player by then end of the year. Or pay for my full year hosting fee with dreamhost, that would make this blog a sustainable one (as I also recycle electrons from old posts).

Tags: accessibility, web design