Increase font size, get to the point quicker

A few months ago, I changed all my IDEs and text editors (Visual Studio, SQL Management Studio, Notepad2, Textmate) from their default font sizes up to a much larger 14-16 points.

A bigger font size is easier on the eyes, and encourages you to write shorter lines and smaller methods that fit on one screen so you don’t have to scroll to read them.

It’s not a massive change, but does provide two useful side-effects: it promotes highly cohesive code (lots of small units of code doing specific little tasks) and also reduces cognitive load (i.e. stress).

Recently I installed a nice new WordPress theme for my blog that looks great and has a much bigger font size than the previous one. And after two weeks I have found similar effects creeping across into my writing style.

As well as writing bite-sized units of code, I am writing bite-sized blog posts that get to the point a lot quicker. Good stuff.