Accessibility: Fonts and Readability

Fonts are the way in which text is shaped and styled. Just Jolly offers numerous tools, as well as the ability to use your own fonts using custom code. 

Some fonts are more legible than others, so it is important to make sure the ones you use on your post can be easily read. Choosing clear, legible fonts can help visitors who have additional visual or reading needs.

Accessibility font guidelines

We recommend following these guidelines when adding text and fonts to your post:

• Choose a font that has a balance between character ambiguity and character complexity. Characters should be easily distinguished from each other, but also have simple patterns and shapes.

• Use a limited number of fonts on your post, and avoid having multiple typefaces in the same block of text.

• Avoid small font sizes where possible. We recommend keeping your text at 14 pixels and above. 

• Make sure that your font has sufficient spacing between characters, words, and lines. This ensures that the text is not compacted, and can be read easily.

• Keep in mind that formatted text such as italics, all caps, and strikethrough can be more difficult to read for visitors with visual and reading impairments. 

• Be aware of the color contrast between your text and background, especially when using lightweight fonts.

• Keep text alignment in mind. Justified text contains spacing variations, which can impact its readability. We recommend aligning text to the left, as this is the easiest to read in left-to-right languages.

• Headings sand paragraphs should contain empty space between and around them to ensure they can be easily read and distinguished.

• Having too many or too few characters in a line can impact readability. We recommend keeping your line length between 50 and 120 characters where possible.