Other Findings
46% of Web sites underlined the links in their body copy, while the others
highlighted only with color or a bold font weight. 6% of Web sites used
some kind of image replacement for headings or body copy (e.g. Monocle,
New Yorker, Newsweek). 96% of Web sites do not justify text.
Web sites gave their text a left padding of on average 11.7 pixels (counting
from the left content area border).
Conclusion
The study shows a clear set of common practices and guidelines for setting
type in Web design. Note, though, that these findings are not scientific
and should serve only as rough guidelines:
- Either serif or sans-serif fonts are fine for body copy and headings, but
sans-serif fonts are still more popular for both. - Common choices for headlines are:
- Georgia,
- Arial and
- Helvetica.
- Common choices for body copy are:
- Georgia,
- Arial,
- Verdana and
- Lucida Grande..