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On paper, serifs can be printed with enough resolution to aid in readability. On screens however, serifs are rendered too coarse and distract. That's why with
by Luyt 16y ago
On paper, serifs can be printed with enough resolution to aid in readability. On screens however, serifs are rendered too coarse and distract. That's why with current screen resolutions, sans serif works better for screen type.
- RossM 16y agoI find serif's easier to read if they're large enough (Readability does it right I think, fairly large serif text).
- jgranby 16y agoIndeed, and this trend also seems to prefer large-ish font sizes.
- DrJokepu 16y agoI stand by my assertion that this is a myth. Maybe for small font sizes it matters, but on modern displays, on medium font sizes, in the age of sub-pixel rendering, it shouldn't.
- mechanical_fish 16y agoI went Googling for science on this subject and promptly found a review of the usability literature: http://www.alexpoole.info/academic/literaturereview.html http://www.alexpoole.info/academic/literaturereview.html and a second study: http://www.unc.edu/~jkullama/inls181/final/serif.html http://www.unc.edu/~jkullama/inls181/final/serif.html And a poll of user preferences: http://www.wilsonweb.com/wmt6/html-email-fonts.htm http://www.wilsonweb.com/wmt6/html-email-fonts.htm The apparent conclusion: Serifs hsve a small-to-nonexistent effect on the readability of digital text, one way or the other. However, other qualities like x-height and letter spacing do make a difference. In a Times New Roman vs Arial battle, Arial tends to come out on top. But that may well be because it has a larger x-height. When you poll users on their preferences they love sans-serif fonts. But a big part of the problem is that so few serif fonts come installed in all browsers. Times New Roman seems to be a poor screen font, and Georgia is better but isn't installed everywhere. In short, the fact that we prefer sans serif fonts for the web may be an artifact of our crappy selection of web fonts. It will be very interesting to see if and when serifs stage a comeback in the era of 300dpi displays and, more importantly, a much larger choice of fonts.
- ThomPete 16y agoThis might all change with the entrance of tablets, especially if they reach higher resolution. Serif fonts have the advantage that they have stronger row structure than sans-serif as the serifs act as a line. So with the improvement of dpi in tablets happen, so will the use of serif fonts increase.
- rradu 16y agoWasn't this just on HN a few days back? Why you dont use Garamond on the web - http://www.kadavy.net/blog/posts/design-for-hackers-why-you-dont-use-garamond-on-the-web/ http://www.kadavy.net/blog/posts/design-for-hackers-why-you-...