The Font Sizes That Make Older Clients Leave Your Website
If your target audience is 40 or older (most professional services clients are), body text under 16 pixels makes your best copy unreadable. They will not zoom. They will bounce.
Presbyopia begins around age 40. By 50, most people need larger text to read comfortably. If your website serves professional services clients (dentists, lawyers, consultants, financial advisors), your decision-makers are typically in this range. Body text at 14 pixels is a conversion killer.
The minimum for body text is 16 pixels. 18 pixels is better for hero descriptions and key messaging. Keep 14 pixels only for labels, metadata, and supplementary information that is not essential to the conversion.
Users who strain to read do not zoom. They bounce. They leave your site and visit your competitor whose text they can actually read. Small text on warm backgrounds with muted colors compounds the problem because the reduced contrast makes every pixel of font size matter more.
Build your type system intentionally. Choose a mathematical scale ratio (1.25 for moderate, 1.333 for spacious) so each size step has a relationship to the others. Use fluid sizing with CSS clamp() so text scales smoothly between phone and desktop instead of jumping at breakpoints.
Topics
Want to see these systems in action?
Start with a conversation. We will walk through how these workflows apply to your business.
Get your AI Roadmap