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> The traditional excuse for stripping away ornament has been about improving legibility, especially for small screens. This is a fallacy No, serifs really do

by pdkl95 8y ago

> The traditional excuse for stripping away ornament has been about improving legibility, especially for small screens. This is a fallacy No, serifs really do have legibility issues, but not for small screens; they cause problems at (very) small font sizes where glyphs are only a handful of pixels tall. > You can render a serif letter in seven pixels Yes, but that's pushing it and the legibility will depend on the quality of the font hinting, how the font rasterizer antialiases, and the way subpixels are utilized[1]. Legibility will even depend on the display technology: low resolution fonts on a CRT can be a lot harder to read compared to an LCD. (a shadow mask means phosphors do not align 1-to-1 with pixels[2]) Of course, legibility is in the eye of the beholder, and many people find serifed fonts to be easier to read, while others prefer sans-serif, and some people just don't care. For some people, anything smaller or more complicated than high-contrast 96pt simple sans-serif is unreadable. > drops the serifs from its logo A logo, however, is probably (much?) larger than the small font sizes where serifs often have legibility issues. [1] http://www.antigrain.com/research/font_rasterization/index.html http://www.antigrain.com/research/font_rasterization/index.h... [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ea6tw-gulnQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ea6tw-gulnQ

jozzas 8y ago
Who is using CRTs? Mobiles have incredible pixel density, high-pixel-density displays and TVs are becoming the norm, etc. Is this even an issue? Who only has 7 pixels for their text?
- pasta 8y ago
  What about printing on objects? A good logo can be printed on a pen and still be readable and recognizable.
  - pdkl95 8y ago
    Printing hardware usually has higher point density than screens. It depends on the printing method, but >=300dpi is reasonably common.
- pdkl95 8y ago
  Serifs on low resolution fonts didn't gain legibility when LCD market share became dominant. > Is this even an issue? Yes, to some people on some devices. While less common than it was a decade ago, old hardware exists[1], poor quality displays exist, and broken hardware exists[2]. However, > Who only has 7 pixels for their text? Everybody that used an Apple II, Atari 400/800, Commodore 64? Most 8-bit computers in the era before framebuffers were common used low-resolution hardware fonts[3]. [1] The last time I bought any kind of computer hardware was ~2011; my CPU and LCD monitor are vintage 2008. Wile my LCD displays small fonts very clearly, [2] I know multiple people that have been stuck using a broken LCD because they cannot afford to replace their old (PowerPC) macbook. [3] https://damieng.com/blog/2011/02/20/typography-in-8-bits-system-fonts https://damieng.com/blog/2011/02/20/typography-in-8-bits-sys...
  - brazzledazzle 8y ago
    At some point you have to be okay with leaving people behind in some way or another. Where you draw that line is going to depend on your goals, market, etc. but if you want progress in design and/or technology you have to draw the line somewhere. I hope I’m not coming off as brusque with that attitude. I just think it’s practical. I’m intimately acquainted with using older hardware. I was lucky to have a computer and an internet connection at all as a child but I won’t pretend that it wasn’t a punch in the gut every time a website would take ages to load, crawl when it did load or a game wouldn’t run at all. It hurt when the line was drawn at broadband or faster CPUs/GPUs but I’m glad they didn’t wait for me to catch up. There’s a tug between creators and consumers but the drive toward new technology is a good thing. Eventually it becomes more affordable or can be had for reasonable prices second hand. That said, I don’t think that precludes reasonable accommodation. If your website isn’t an application it should be readable without JavaScript even if it’s ugly, screen readers should work, users should be able to adjust their font size even if it’s ugly, etc.

by pdkl95 8y ago

jozzas 8y ago

Who is using CRTs? Mobiles have incredible pixel density, high-pixel-density displays and TVs are becoming the norm, etc. Is this even an issue? Who only has 7 pixels for their text?

pasta 8y ago
What about printing on objects? A good logo can be printed on a pen and still be readable and recognizable.
- pdkl95 8y ago
  Printing hardware usually has higher point density than screens. It depends on the printing method, but >=300dpi is reasonably common.
pdkl95 8y ago
Serifs on low resolution fonts didn't gain legibility when LCD market share became dominant. > Is this even an issue? Yes, to some people on some devices. While less common than it was a decade ago, old hardware exists[1], poor quality displays exist, and broken hardware exists[2]. However, > Who only has 7 pixels for their text? Everybody that used an Apple II, Atari 400/800, Commodore 64? Most 8-bit computers in the era before framebuffers were common used low-resolution hardware fonts[3]. [1] The last time I bought any kind of computer hardware was ~2011; my CPU and LCD monitor are vintage 2008. Wile my LCD displays small fonts very clearly, [2] I know multiple people that have been stuck using a broken LCD because they cannot afford to replace their old (PowerPC) macbook. [3] https://damieng.com/blog/2011/02/20/typography-in-8-bits-system-fonts https://damieng.com/blog/2011/02/20/typography-in-8-bits-sys...
- brazzledazzle 8y ago
  At some point you have to be okay with leaving people behind in some way or another. Where you draw that line is going to depend on your goals, market, etc. but if you want progress in design and/or technology you have to draw the line somewhere. I hope I’m not coming off as brusque with that attitude. I just think it’s practical. I’m intimately acquainted with using older hardware. I was lucky to have a computer and an internet connection at all as a child but I won’t pretend that it wasn’t a punch in the gut every time a website would take ages to load, crawl when it did load or a game wouldn’t run at all. It hurt when the line was drawn at broadband or faster CPUs/GPUs but I’m glad they didn’t wait for me to catch up. There’s a tug between creators and consumers but the drive toward new technology is a good thing. Eventually it becomes more affordable or can be had for reasonable prices second hand. That said, I don’t think that precludes reasonable accommodation. If your website isn’t an application it should be readable without JavaScript even if it’s ugly, screen readers should work, users should be able to adjust their font size even if it’s ugly, etc.