I first started blogging 3 years ago and, at that time, I didn’t appreciate the difference between reading a book and reading a blog on a computer screen. Since then, I’ve reduced my line length from 120 characters to between 65 and 75 characters per line.

I cater for a screen resolution of 1000 px because more than 95% of my visitors have this, according to the Google Analytics results. I prefer to put all of my content within a screen that requires no scrolling. I do this for ergonomic reasons. I think that it’s easier to “click” for the next page than to select the scroll bar or use the mouse wheel. However, it’s easier to scan the whole article using just the scroll wheel. I guess I’m still undecided on that point.

I remember from my days of giving customer presentations, with slides or Power Point, that only 35% of the viewing area should be text. The rest may be white or other non-demanding images.

I know its difficult to please all readers as there can often be one thing that makes a layout just short of ideal for any particular reader, for example i can often be slightly disappointed to find a blog with fantastic content but it has a dark background, i dislike dark backgrounds, or the text is way too small.

I think with plenty of thought put into a layout though that most visitors can be catered for.

Thanks for the tips.