Revealr

What is it?

People with myopia can see close things well but things in the distance are blurred. So reading street signs or recognising friends across the street is difficult without corrective glasses or contact lenses.

How many people have it?

Myopia affects 25% of the population in western industrialised societies and has a potentially negative effect on self-esteem, career choice, and ocular health [1]

In Europe and America its more than a quarter of the population and about 1 in 20 have bad myopia (more than -5D prescription) [2]. Some studies have found that half of students who do lots of close reading (and presumably computer reading) are short sighted.[3]

Why it is important to my web site?

Many people now sit in front of a computer for more than 8 hours a day and suffer from eye strain, fatigue and temporary myopia. Experts advise that your monitor should be at least an arm's length away [4] and you should increase the font size so you do not strain your eyes [4][5]

Its easy to code your web site so that people can read it at any text size they choose but often overlooked. Then when people increase the text size to read comfortably strange problems can happen like these;

words get too tall and disappear under other sections white words disappear on white background paragraphs layer on top of each other so none is readable

Our monthly newsletter discusses problems like these and how to solve them (or brief your web programmer so she can!). New subscribers get a complimentary review of any large text problems on their web site with plain English solutions.

Further reading

  • Myopia manual from University of Illinoisagingeye.net/myopia/myopiaindex.php
  • Wikipedia page on myopia - description and statistics en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myopia
  • Vision 2020 - the World Health Organisation mission to eliminate the main causes of avoidable blindness www.vision2020.org

References

  1. Full text of "Quality of life in myopia" published by British Journal of Opthalmology May 2000 bjo.bmj.com/cgi/content/full/84/9/1031
  2. Abstract from "The prevalence of refractive errors among adults in the United States, Western Europe, and Australia" published by Opthalmology journal April 2004 www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15078666
    3. Their results
    low myopia -1Dhigh myopia -5D
    Continentpercentpeoplepercentpeople
    Europe26.649,600,0004.68,500,000
    America25.430,400,0004.55,300,000
    Australia16.41,300,0002.8230,000
  3. Abstract from "Ametropia and Ocular Biometry in a U.K. University Student Population" published by Optometry & Vision Science April 2005 www.optvissci.com/pt/re/ovs/abstract.00006324-200504000-00010.htm
  4. Good ergonomics advise from Smart-Desks www.smart-desk.co.uk/ergonomics02.html#visual-ergonomics
  5. Sight for sore eyes College of Optometrists 2005 www.college-optometrists.org/index.aspx/pcms/site.News_and_Events.Press_Release_Archive.2005.industry_news.A_Sight_for_Sore_Eyes/