fighting highlighting
I recently got some feedback on the way I highlight words or expressions throughout my posts. Most if not all of them were negative, and informed me that my highlighted words were mistaken for hyperlinks, or just making it hard to read the text.
All in all, I would rather keep the highlighting. And considering that my real hyperlinks are clearly marked as though (different colour *with underline), I have nontheless modified my CSS to use a more neutral colour (light grey instead of light blue) and tried to simulate a (gimmicky) marker effect by having a slightly darker vertical band before the highlight (where you put down the highliner).
Test the effect on this entry, and let me know what you think back here.
10 Comments added
Paul, I don't really mind it, but wonder how necessary it is. It's no so much the effect now, but the fact that the spacing of the letters is now affected by the darker bit.
I know, there's just no pleasing some people.
It still disturbs the reading flow.
Try something like only to show the higlighted words by hovering the paragraph. So readers can choose wether they want to see them or not. It would be like adding the second layer on the bookpages presented in the "hyperlinks in print ii"-post.
I still find it very distracting, and it seems fairly arbitrary as to what words/phrases are highlighted or not...I find myself trying to read the article then then wondering why words are highlighted and what the significance is, etc.
I think I see what what you're trying to do but I don't think it's working at all.
What!? I think it's wonderful. It really helps reading, and makes scanning of the article alot easier. I just open the page, and my brain automaticly registers the keywords of the article.
I'm definately implementing something like that on my blog. Probably even with a delicious-like weighter, so that if i do a double emphasize it will be a darker highlight color.
The new design is a little less confusing, but probably still to some degree. In any case, you can't just rely on the underlined links in context making the highlight effect clear, because you don't always have links -- like the article in questions which was previously discussed (it didn't have any links right within the post itself). I would suggest to simply make the highlight as bold, and also, to use a more standard font size here (this is another issue).
By the way, I prefered the previous style with light blue and no vertical band. But it looks like I'm in a minority here.
Maybe this has something to do with your idea:
http://www.pontomidia.com.br/ricardo/colinks/english.html
be unique...it is an interesting effect.
just maybe a couple of suggestions: limit the 'highlighting' per paragraph and use a highlight color (maybe a PMS 320, if not to strong).
the effect will be more as it is normally used...you read, highlight a section (line or lines), go back to reading. the emphasis will be more exacting.
not trying to dictate, just a suggestion.
I find to highlight so many words detracts from the writing and actual meaning of the piece - they are too dominant - IT'S LIKE WRITING AN ENTIRE LETTER IN CAPS FOR EMPHASIS. The odd one or two or three highlighted words would provide the required emphasis - but with so many highlighted I find it difficult to read. Use the technique - but with restraint. As for scanning - I prefer the use of headings, pullquotes or a well written summary/blurb.
At first I thought they were hyperlinks. It wasn't until I cracked open your css file that I discovered that you were simply using them for emphasis.
True, it does disrupt the flow, but there's something there. I like how they look and think that they would make good footnotes for co-linking (as per the pontomidia url above).
I'm glad someone is at least trying stuff with type online. Keep it up.