It is still important, however, for designers to follow the basic rules of typography. In her essay "Printing Should Be Invisible," Beatrice Ward states, "[Typography] is calculated to reveal rather than hide the beautiful thing which it was meant to contain" (Warde). Users should not be distracted by the typography, for it serves to give the content an understandable visual form. To make the typography invisible, designers need to apply the basic rules of legibility, emphasis,
and consistency.

Legibility: Legibility depends on the strong visual contrast between one font and another and between blocks of text and the surrounding white space. When scanning a page, readers do not see the details of the page, but the overall pattern and contrast (Nielsen, "How Users Read"). (8.8) If every page is dense with text, readers will see an uninviting wall of gray that lacks visual organization. Legibility is increased when there are regular, repeating patterns established through the careful organization of text and graphics (Andres 64). Repeating patterns allow users to accurately predict where information is located.

Emphasis: A web page of solid text is hard to scan for content structure. Readers need landmarks to guide them through the structure and content. Display type--type that is distinguished by its difference in size and shape --emphasizes information, reveals hierarchy, and adds visual variety to the page, drawing the reader into the content. Emphasis should be used sparingly, however. For instance, if all the text is in bold, none of the words will stand out. Emphasis can be applied by italicizing, bolding, underlining, coloring, capitalizing, and indenting the text. Web designers should be discouraged, however, from underlining text because users often confuse underlined text with a link. The designer should also avoid setting words and sentences in upper case. Words set in capital letters occupy more space and are harder to read than words set in lower-case letters.