1. It is too small – my estimate is that it is equivalent to a 10 point font set at around 13 point spacing. The extra white space between lines gives an elegant look to the page but it aggravates the next issue that I have with it.

2. The typeface is too light – meaning that the width of the strokes (the lines) of the letters is very fine. This contributes to feeling of lightness about the page but, together with the extra line spacing, contributes to glare that makes the page more difficult to read.

3. The typeface has an x-height that is around 50% of the cap-height. The ascenders rise significantly above the cap-height (ascenders usually do this but in this face the added height is extreme), while the descenders (the loops letters) are very tight to the body of the letter. Again this contributes to the feeling of elegance but compressing the main features of each letter into a very small space has a negative impact on the legibility of the text.

This baby boomer, remember we are the generation who laid the groundworks the web is built on, agrees with Paul’s comments. In the 1960s Marshall McLuhan said ‘medium is the message’ a comment that I believe is relevant to this discussion. Here ‘the medium’ is the web page. Get the design of the medium wrong and you send the ‘message’ that the content is not intended for the user. I recommend going for accessible design everytime. It may not always be the most elegant but it does help to avoid the accidental exclusion of significant user groups.