As a mod, I have to read a lot of posts and post histories, and unfortunately, if I was a regular user, I would skip over a lot of it. No, I'm not talking about content that doesn't interest me or posts that are noobish or anything like that...
I'm talking about post styles that completely overwhelm the actual content of the post, making to difficult to read, or even difficult to find.
I know that post styles are a way of expressing oneself, and much as I despise them, I know they're not going away. But for those of you who really feel the need to have a post style, please, take a minute to think about what your motivations for posting in the forums are, and how your post style might affect that.
Now, maybe I'm just crazy, but when I post in the forums, it's to communicate with other people. I want people to read my posts. I want to participate in the conversation at hand. I want people to consider what I have to say and possibly respond, if they are so inclined. Don't you?
So how does it make sense to have a post style that makes it difficult for people to read your message?
Black, left aligned text, of a reasonable size, on a white background is obviously the most easy to read, but if you must have a post style, at least avoid the following:
- Centred text or right aligned text. Centring text is fine for headlines or short messages, but is sucks for body text and longer messages. Right aligned text can work for short messages too, such as a short blurb in an advertisement, but also sucks for body text. Even if you're only posting a line or two, you're still forcing people to find the beginning of your lines on a page where almost every other post is going to have left aligned text, which is easy to track from line to line. People who are quickly skimming the page will be more inclined to skip over your message.
Tiny text. The default text size on Gaia is nice and readable. When you start getting into smaller text sizes you may be alienating part of your audience. Do you like having to change your text size in your browser or lean toward your monitor to read what is there? I know I don't. Keep in mind too, that a lot of people don't have the greatest eyesight, and high display resolutions are becoming more and more common. Your 9pt text might look fine to you on an 800x600 display, but for someone with a really high resolution it could be downright unreadable.
Light colours on light backgrounds. Contrast is key - if I have to highlight your text in order to read it, it's too light. If you like a certain colour, choose a darker shade.
Decorative text. Decorative text in your post is distracting for two reasons - it can make it hard to pick out what is actual content and what is decoration, and your eye is naturally drawn to read it. There's a reason that designers use dummy text when designing page layouts - you don't want irrelevant text distracting people from the real message.
Large, obtrusive or distracting images. A small image at the top, side or bottom of your post can fit in fairly well, but a decorative image shouldn't overwhelm your post. If you usually make one-line posts, don't stick an image in every post that is 300px tall. Large images take up screen real estate and don't forget, everyone who views your post will have to download your image. Don't abuse the fact that we don't have strict guidelines on file size in post styles and don't disrupt other users' Gaia experience by making them download several mb per page (Gaia is pretty bandwidth intensive as it is.)
So if you must have a post style, keep it subtle and readable, with ease of communication forefront in your mind. Better yet, utilize your signature and profile to express your own personal style, and focus on content rather than embellishment when posting in the forums.
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