Pro underlined, bold italic

Subjectively about the brightest and most spectacular design of the text used on various websites, as well as the causes and consequences of its use.

I think a significant number of Habrahabr visitors, including even those who are not engaged in the design or layout of websites, have repeatedly heard jokes about the underlined, bold and italic text that customers strive to put on the page of their website. Usually, on the part of designers this is presented as an example of wretched taste, as well as customer misunderstanding of typography, design, etc.

In this question, of course, you can understand - which designer will be pleased when some incompetent people will sculpt the top line on your creation with a verified design, correct layout and correct typography (as well as other indicators of the "correct" site)? Nevertheless, this question has a reverse side of the coin, and, in my opinion, it is much more important than the aesthetic component.

As in many other issues, everything here is corny rests on the human factor. Moreover, this is not about those “incompetent” comrades who actually add this text to the websites - I am talking about the visitors of these websites, for whom this text is added. Yes, it is done “for people”, no matter how ridiculous it may sound. I will try to explain more clearly below.
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It so happened that a considerable part of my friends and acquaintances found themselves in the field of e-commerce and online media. And since working questions emerge in our communication very often, over the past few years I have received quite interesting information from various sources. To be clear, this is not about a single website or online store, where everything depends on the characteristics of a specific target audience - the sample is much broader. To be more precise, it includes more than seven different online stores of various orientations and sizes, including both online stores for housewives and online stores for advanced PC users, enthusiasts, as well as general public.

Now back to the topic of this note. So, the fact is that for the most part people simply do not read what is written on websites in a “normal” font. Yes, it sounds weird, but it is a fact.

No, the problem is not the visibility of the text or the difficulty of finding a specific section of the site like “payment” or “delivery” - everything is done very conveniently and logically. No, the problem is not in the “walls of the text”, which are too long to read or “incomprehensibly written” text that is difficult to understand - everything is extremely concise and unambiguous. No, the problem is not that people on the site distract something from the text - there is nothing blinking, jumping, or too bright.

As far as I can tell, the problem is simply the fact that most of the visitors have a very distracted attention, at least when they go through the sites. And how can Ichans explain that people do not see on the site, for example, a block that indicates the mode of operation of a store and calls (and also writes in ICQ) to the store during its non-working time? Then write angry reviews on the mail and on various sites. Can not find? I wonder how, if it is just next door to the block of contact information that they use to communicate. Or how can you explain the fact that people are trying to order by phone the product next to which it is directly written “Not available” (this automatically hides the button for adding it to the shopping basket) because “something about your site is buggy - I can not place an order.

I don’t say anything about such trifles as unwillingness to read about the available methods of payment and delivery in a particular store, as well as their conditions, terms and features - it has long been considered the norm by most managers who have already got used to retell all this information to a potential customer.

Why go far? Even on Habrahabr, where most of the people come purposefully to read various articles and notes, in the comments to most of the popular Habratopics there are a lot of people who raise questions already covered in the notes they comment on.

This is where the underlined, bold italics comes into play. It, often coupled with a large size, is used to emphasize the importance of what is written and to increase the percentage of visitors who will still read what they are trying to convey. And most importantly - it really works! Yes, tested by repeated practice. The use of underlined, bold italics allows almost twice to reduce the number of people who did not pay attention to any information, although, of course, it is impossible to use it for all cases. And this effect gives far from final - all the same there are those who “do not see” what was written.

So it turns out that at first a beautiful, sophisticated and verified design is ordered for a store or site, but then everything breaks into stupid practicality and expediency, because a banal indication of an important message with such a clumsy method turns out to be much more efficient than another attempt to rewrite texts, swap places information blocks and other more “intelligent” solutions. Therefore, when next time you want to laugh at the "stupid customers" who have drawn up a piece of text in underlined, bold italics, remember that they are not like that - "such a life" :)

PS: Can someone tell me which blog it is better to move? Transferred to the blog "typography"