Working closely with designers and observing client requests over the past decade or so, I've seen another pattern that also leads to the "small type" problem: Client requests to get as much above the fold as possible. Granted, the majority of the projects I've worked on in the past four or five years have been very large organizations. When client committees make decisions, it's much harder to teach them or even steer them in the right direction.
I'm seeing a growing number of comments here that read like "I can..." or "I prefer..." The article clearly states this is a decision arrived at by considering the end-user. It's all relative; all sites don't need to be that way. You should be user-testing every project with your target market anyways, and if you were and it was a problem you'd hear about it. I know I have, many times.
Another great article on this subject is one "Relative Readability" by Wilson Miner:
I think if you need to shrink things to fit it above the fold, it's time to reconsider what you're putting there. I've never had trouble fitting everything important comfortably above the fold, but I'm only working with my own projects.
I absolutely agree. I also agree with the theory that you should teach, coach and influence your clients with what your team has learned over the course of your career.
The clients I mentioned are organizations with thousands of employees, and (at the very least) dozens of very large departments. Their decisions are always made by committees made up by representatives from these departments, and they all want equal or more attention. You just can't teach clients like that and stay within a tasteful budget. All you can do is creatively mitigate.
It's not all bad, though. It's just another puzzle to solve, only this time the solution isn't in code.
(Sorry for straying so far off topic from the original article)
I'm seeing a growing number of comments here that read like "I can..." or "I prefer..." The article clearly states this is a decision arrived at by considering the end-user. It's all relative; all sites don't need to be that way. You should be user-testing every project with your target market anyways, and if you were and it was a problem you'd hear about it. I know I have, many times.
Another great article on this subject is one "Relative Readability" by Wilson Miner:
http://www.wilsonminer.com/posts/2008/oct/20/relative-readab...