The Web Was Built for Small Type. We Forgot.

A case for interfaces that respect the distance between a reader and a glowing screen.

In 1998, my first office monitor sat an arm’s length away and made every letter earn its place. Menus were roomy, labels were blunt, and nobody mistook a lowercase l for a one. We now ship immaculate interfaces that ask readers to squint through them.

Legibility is a product decision

Last winter, our team rebuilt the account screen with wider labels and fewer tiny controls. Support tickets did not become poetry, but they did become shorter. A screen is not a sheet of paper; it is a lit surface encountered in motion, at a distance, between tasks.