- 9.5.1 If the text will be read on the screen, design it for that medium. -

- Like a forest or a garden or a field, an honest page of letters can absorb -- - and will repay -- as much attention as it is given. Much type now, however, is - composed not for the page but for the screen of a computer. That screen can be - alive with flowing color, but the best computer monitors have dismal resolution - (about 130 dpi: one fifth the current norm for laser printers and roughly 5% of - the norm for professional digital typesetting). When the text is crudely - rendered, the eye goes looking for distraction, which the screen is all too - able to provide. -

- The screen mimics the sky, not the earth. It bombards the eye with light - instead of waiting to repay the gift of vision. It is not simultaneously - restful and lively, like a field full of flowers, or the face of a thinking - human being, or a well-made typographic page. And we read the screen the way we - read the sky: in quick sweeps, guessing at the weather from the changing shapes - of clouds, or like astronomers, in magnified small bits, examining details. We - look to it for clues and revelations more than wisdom. This makes it an - attractive place for advertising and dogmatizing, but not so good a place for - thoughtful text. -

- The screen, in other words, is a reading environment even more fugitive than - the newspaper. Intricate long sentences full of unfamiliar words stand little - chance. At text size, subtle and delicate letterforms stand little chance as - well. Superscripts and subscripts, footnotes, endnotes, sidenotes disappear. In - the harsh light and coarse resolution of the screen such accessories are - difficult to see; what is worse, they dispel the essential illusion of speed. - so the links and jumps of hypertext replace them. All the subtexts then can be - the same size and readers are at liberty to skip from text to text like - children switching channels on tv. When reading takes this form, sentences and - letterforms retreat to blunt simplicity. Forms bred on newsprint and signage - are most likely to survive. -