Designing Quiz Interfaces: Typography Tips from the Women's FA Cup Quiz

Hook: Why quiz typography still breaks engagement — and how the Women's FA Cup quiz shows the fix

Quizzes are deceptively hard to design. You need instant readability, clear hierarchy, compact microcopy, and a responsive type system that performs on slow mobile networks — all while keeping the experience playful and on-brand. Get any of those wrong and completion rates tumble, answers are misread, and players drop out.

In early 2026 the BBC's Women’s FA Cup quiz is a useful case study: a sports trivia UI that prioritises clarity and quick rewards, with copy and layout aimed at short attention spans. Use it as a springboard to build quiz typography that increases accuracy, increases time-on-task, and reduces cognitive overhead for sports and trivia experiences.

Case study: What the BBC Women's FA Cup quiz gets right (and what to refine)

The BBC quiz is a simple, mobile-first experience: a clear question line, concise microcopy like “Good luck!”, immediate navigation to related quizzes, and a visual progression through 55 items. From a typographic point of view, several patterns stand out:

• Single-line question emphasis — questions are presented above answer options in a size and weight that quickly separates them from choices.
• Concise microcopy — the UI uses short encouragements and links to related quizzes that keep the user in the sports funnel.
• Mobile-prioritised touch targets — answer options are large, spaced, and tappable, which helps in accuracy and reduces accidental taps.

Opportunities for improvement (and sources for design experiments): the quiz could use progressive typography — small, perceptible shifts in size and weight as users move through rounds — and more explicit accessible live feedback to announce scores and correct answers to screen readers.

Design principle #1 — Hierarchy: make the question unmistakable

Hierarchy is the single most important typographic decision in a quiz UI. A user should glance once and know the question, options, their progress, and the next action. Use scale, weight, and spacing to do this.

Practical rules

• Make the question at least 1.25–1.5x the body option size visually (not just nominal font-size — use weight and line-height too).
• Reserve the boldest weight for the question and the active state; keep options regular to avoid visual competition.
• Use a consistent vertical rhythm — at least 1.2–1.4 line-height for question copy; 1.4–1.6 for answer options to improve legibility under taps.

Example CSS (responsive fluid scale using modern CSS):

:root {
  --fs-question: clamp(18px, 4.6vw, 28px);
  --fs-option: clamp(16px, 4vw, 20px);
  --lh-question: 1.25;
  --lh-option: 1.45;
}
.question { font-size: var(--fs-question); line-height: var(--lh-question); font-weight: 700; }
.option { font-size: var(--fs-option); line-height: var(--lh-option); font-weight: 400; }

In 2026, CSS clamp() plus viewport-relative units give robust fluid type without JS — a solid foundation for mobile-first quizzes.

Design principle #2 — Microcopy: speak like a helpful commentator

Microcopy in a quiz is the UX voice. In sports quizzes, microcopy acts like a commentator: short, positive, and informative. It nudges players and reduces friction.

Where microcopy matters most

• Start screen: concise prompt and a clear CTA (e.g., “Name the winners — 10 questions. Ready?”).
• Per-question hint: subtle, optional hints like “Think 1990s — club in blue” rather than full spoilers.
• Immediate feedback: microcopy that confirms correctness — “Nice one!” or “Close — try the next.” Keep it short.
• Progress updates: “3 of 10” plus a short motivational phrase can increase completion rates.

Examples of microcopy snippets optimised for engagement:

• Start: “55 finals — how many can you name? Let’s go.”
• Correct: “Goal! Correct — +1 point.”
• Incorrect: “Not this time. The winner was Chelsea (2017). Next!”
• End: “Great run — share your score.”

Accessibility note: always surface these updates through an aria-live region so assistive tech hears them in real-time:

<div aria-live="polite" class="quiz-feedback">Nice one — +1 point</div>

Design principle #3 — Responsive type: mobile-first, then scale up

Quizzes are often consumed on phones inside social feeds, so design mobile-first. Make the type system adapt fluidly across widths and device pixel densities.

Practical responsive strategies

• Fluid scaling: use clamp() with viewport units for headline and option sizes so they scale smoothly between handset and desktop.
• Container queries: in 2026 container queries are widely supported — they let you change type inside the quiz card independent of page layout. Use them to adapt font-size and spacing for narrow cards or embedded widgets.
• Touch target sizing: keep options at least 44–48px tall on mobile; increase spacing on hover for desktop.

Container query example:

.quiz-card { container-type: inline-size; }
@container (max-width: 420px) {
  .question { font-size: 20px; }
  .option { font-size: 18px; }
}

Design principle #4 — Performance & type delivery in 2026

Typography impacts load time and perceived speed. Sports quizzes benefit from instant interaction; a 300–500ms delay on first render can kill engagement. Use these 2026 best practices:

• Prefer variable fonts for weight and width axes. They reduce multiple font files and allow on-the-fly emphasis (use font-variation-settings when available).
• Preload critical type with <link rel="preload" as="font" crossorigin> for the brand/display face, and use font-display: swap to avoid FOIT. In cases where brand face is non-critical, use a system UI fallback then swap in the web font.
• Subset for sports data — if your quiz uses mainly Latin and numerals, generate a subset WOFF2 for a fast first paint.
• Font loading API: use the FontFace API to detect loaded fonts and trigger subtle transitions. In 2026, browsers support better FontFaceSet events to coordinate micro-interactions with font readiness.

Preload example:

<link rel="preload" href="/fonts/SportVar.woff2" as="font" type="font/woff2" crossorigin>

Variable font emphasis example:

.question { font-family: 'SportVar', system-ui, -apple-system, Segoe UI, Roboto, sans-serif; font-variation-settings: 'wght' 700; }
.option { font-variation-settings: 'wght' 400; }

Design principle #5 — Interaction design: timing, motion, and feedback

Micro-interactions around answer selection are as important as typography. Use motion to guide attention, but respect preferences.

• Reveal timing: 200–300ms for state changes (option to selected), up to 400ms for reveal of correct answer. Anything longer feels sluggish.
• Prefer fade + scale over slide: small scale for emphasis (scale 1 → 1.03) with opacity change is readable and phone-friendly.
• Respect prefers-reduced-motion: disable non-essential transforms and use instant reveals for those users.

CSS for reduced motion:

@media (prefers-reduced-motion: reduce) {
  .option { transition: none; }
}

Sports branding: balancing personality and readability

Sports quizzes often borrow club branding — colors, mascots, even condensed display faces. Typography must echo that energy without impairing readability.

Branding guidelines

• Heading/display font: you can use a bolder, condensed display for headings (team names, years), but limit it to headings and score markers.
• Body/options: stick to open, high-legibility sans-serif with medium x-height and clear numeral forms.
• Contrast: ensure text contrasts meet WCAG 2.1 AA at minimum for quizzes used publicly — scoreboard numerals often fail contrast tests when overlayed on brand gradients.

Example pairing (2026 trend): use a variable display for headings and a highly legible variable UI face for body text — fewer files, easier runtime tuning.

Accessibility & internationalisation (practical checklist)

• Use semantic HTML: <h2> for question containers, <button> for options, and <progress> for visible progression.
• Announce question numbers with aria-live for screen readers.
• Ensure focus states are visible and meet contrast requirements.
• For multilingual sports quizzes, consider variable fonts that include extended glyph coverage to avoid font fallbacks creating layout shifts.

Mini redesign: Applying these rules to a BBC-style football quiz

Here’s a compact typographic plan to upgrade a BBC-style quiz card used in sports sites or newsletters.

1. Card size: mobile card width 320–420px; container queries adapt type inside card.
2. Question: 22–28px (clamped), 700 weight, 1.25 lh. Upper limit for desktop where cards are larger.
3. Options: 18–20px (clamped), 400 weight, 1.45 lh, 48px min height touch targets.
4. Microcopy: concise status line beneath progress: “3 of 10 — keep going!” Announce via aria-live="polite".
5. Feedback: 250ms colour shift for correct/incorrect; 300–350ms reveal for a short explanatory microcopy below the correct option.
6. Fonts: preload a variable UI face (WOFF2 subset), use system fallback, and swap when loaded. Use numeric tabular figures for scores (font-feature-settings: 'tnum' 1;).

QA checklist & metrics to measure success

After implementation, measure both typographic performance and behavioural metrics.

• Performance: First Contentful Paint (FCP) and Time to Interactive (TTI) for the quiz card under 1s on 3G-like throttling.
• Engagement: completion rate, time per question, and abandonment rate after first question.
• Accuracy: answer mis-click rate — lowered by large tap targets and clear hierarchy.
• Accessibility: keyboard navigation success rate and screen reader feedback correctness.

2026 trends to watch (and use)

• AI-assisted microcopy: automated, tone-adjusted encouragements and hints tailored to user behaviour while retaining editorial control.
• Dynamic typography with variable fonts: on-the-fly weighting to emphasise scoring changes or highlight correct answers without extra file downloads.
• Rich container-aware components: quiz cards that adapt typography to their embedding context (news feed, story, or iframe) using container queries.
• Privacy-preserving personalization: client-side tweaks to typography size and spacing based on usage patterns (prefers larger type after repeated zooms) without server storage.

Key takeaways — what you can implement today

• Prioritise hierarchy: question > options > microcopy. Use scale and weight rather than color alone.
• Microcopy is UX: short, encouraging lines increase completion. Announce these via aria-live.
• Use fluid typography: clamp() + container queries for adaptable, readable text across devices.
• Optimize type delivery: prefer variable fonts, preload critical fonts, use font-display swap, and subset where possible.
• Test and measure: track completion, mis-clicks, and accessibility metrics to iterate.

Final thought: The scoreboard is typographic

Sports quizzes live at the intersection of brand, speed, and micro-engagement. Typography is not decoration — it is the scoreboard. Carefully chosen scale, rapid microcopy, and mobile-first responsive type increase accuracy and completion while keeping the thrill of the game.

“There have been 55 finals since the Women’s FA Cup began… How many winners can you name?” — a simple prompt, but the typographic choices around it decide whether the player stays for all 55.

Call to action

Ready to test these patterns? Rebuild one quiz card using the CSS snippets above and run an A/B test: original vs. hierarchy-first typography. Share your results or drop a link — we’ll review and suggest optimisations tuned for sports branding and accessibility.

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