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I know people really hate Comic Sans, but it has some really useful properties. One particularly useful property, especially in the education sector, is that d
by Twirrim 7y ago
I know people really hate Comic Sans, but it has some really useful properties.
One particularly useful property, especially in the education sector, is that dyslexics typically find it decidedly easier to read. Comic Sans uses distinct shapes for each character, e.g. no 'p' rotated to be 'q', and a variety of different sizes, all of which help make it easier for dyslexics.
AIGA article on the subject: https://eyeondesign.aiga.org/sad-but-true-comic-sans-might-just-be-the-best-font-for-dyslexics/ https://eyeondesign.aiga.org/sad-but-true-comic-sans-might-j...
From a bit by the British Dyslexic Association:
https://bdatech.org/what-technology/typefaces-for-dyslexia/ https://bdatech.org/what-technology/typefaces-for-dyslexia/
Studies showed the following characteristics as being desired:
* Good ascenders and descenders, b, d, f, h, k, l, t, and all capitals; g, j, p, q, y.
* b and d; p and q distinguished, not mirror images.
* Different forms for capital I, lowercase l and digit 1.
* Rounded g as in handwriting. Most liked rounded a, although perhaps some felt that it may be confused with o.
* Letter-spacing, e.g. r, n together rn should not look like m, (‘modern’ may scan as, or sound like, ‘modem’.)
And their summary on Comic Sans MS:
"It meets all dyslexic ‘likes’ except mirrored b and d."
- mrob 7y agoMore recent research showed no benefit from a font designed for dyslexics: "Dyslexie font does not benefit reading in children with or without dyslexia" https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs11881-017-0154-6 https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs11881-017-0154-...
- iamnotacrook 7y agoUse a different font then. I know dyslexic people who have had dyslexic fonts installed on their school computers because they found it amazing. If a report says it's no use, try a different dyslexic font...or read a different report!
- bogwog 7y ago> Use a different font then. ...no shit? The research specifically was about one particular font ("Dyslexie") having no benefit, not that all fonts have no benefit.
- edgarvaldes 7y agoAnd the original comment was about Comic Sans being helpful, not about Dyslexie. So you can read it as "If Dyslexie shows no benefit, better use another font, like Comic Sans".
- kazinator 7y ago... or get different sets of dyslexics for your experimentation, until you find one that validates your hypothesis!
- coldtea 7y agoResearch which needs to be evaluated itself, could be biased, methodologically wrong, etc. In the end dyslectics konw waht tehy konw!
- microcolonel 7y ago> In the end dyslectics konw waht tehy konw! God dammit, now you're making me wonder! Shower thought: are dyslexics just multicore literates?
- gchamonlive 7y agoNo need for multicore literacy, just concurrent
- mirekrusin 7y agoThey are without mutex, lock free, running with race conditions.
- joosters 7y agoOddly, this monospace version has a different style 'a', instead of the 'hand-written' original, which is unfortunate. I understood that one of the benefits of the original comic sans was that each letter was designed exactly as kids learn to write (e.g. no strange flourishes on the bottom of 'g' or the top of 'a'), making its legibility popular in classrooms.
- magashna 7y agoit looks like it has both
- tosche 7y agoI originally had the so-called single-storey a by default, but it looked too confusing at coding text sizes. I even considered offering a "purist" version with that simpler a, but decided against it (too many options would confuse buyers). In my opinion, the simpler structure of a is better described as "writability" rather than legibility, and just because the new design does not follow the original does not mean it's bad. Whether it actually improved is a matter of opinion, but I believe in my decision in the context of coding.
- saurik 7y agoYou could provide it as an OpenType variant (so buyers don't really even need to think about it at all unless they really want it, at which point they already have it).
- tosche 7y agoYou do have both as OpenType variants, it's just that text editors generally don't support that.
- thelazydogsback 7y agoI just gave it a try... It has ligatures listed as a feature, but don't seem to be seeing the conversion of char sequences like I do in Fira Code. (E.g., in Vscode or VS with ligatures enabled, => turns into a "fat arrow", === turns into "a 3-bar equiv", etc.)
- cameronbrown 7y agoPeople often forget one of the reasons Comic Sans is so popular is because of these properties, and cyclically the reason it's so hated is because people can't help but see it everywhere.
- stcredzero 7y agoAn Irish fiddler of some note once quipped, "What's the difference between a great tune and a hackneyed tune? About 20 years." (Tunes come back around. They get so worn out, and "institutionalized" people stop actually playing them for fun. Then, if they fade back into obscurity, another generation can "discover" them again.)
- atoav 7y agoThe problem is that fonts (like tunes) can carry their own context with them. But people are very sensitive to music and very insensitive to fonts. E.g. it is more likely to get an funeral invitation in Comic Sans than to hear the musical equivalent of Comic Sans on a funeral (assuming both was selected by a relative). People are extremely careless in their use of fonts and don’t think about the additional context their font choice carries to anybody reading. A bit like people who write with capslock on and don’t even think about how this changes how their message is perceived on the other end. And Comic Sans is the cristalization of that phenomena, precisely because it is so recognizeable: nobody cares if you write all lowercase after all.
- lloeki 7y agoA good example of that is resumes. A friend thought his resume was good but could not understand why he got turned down every time he applied for a job. I picked an appropriate font, aligned things a bit in the layout and made good use of a couple of white space. 5min job, minor tweaks, zero copy changes. Suddenly he got loads of positive replies to his applications. The target crowd was not one aware of typography nor design knowledge. The volume of applications was also entering the realm of statistically significant.
- DonHopkins 7y ago
- Eric_WVGG 7y agoComic Sans is really good for what it’s designed for — 9pt dialogue in comic speech bubbles. It's really really really terrible for anything else.
- ebg13 7y ago> It's really really really terrible for anything else. That's your opinion. https://www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/im-comic-sans-asshole https://www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/im-comic-sans-asshole
- atoav 7y agoComic Sans is a good font if you want to make the thing look like it was made by a six year old on a computer. It is the printed equivalent of a lazy note written onto a crumbled sheet of paper by somebody who yet has to drink their first coffee of the day. Comic Sans are the equivalent of office calendar quotes like: “You don’t have to be mad to work here, but it helps”. If this is the message you wanna get across, it is the perfect choice. For most other messages there are other more appropriate fonts (many of which can also be quite funky). Comic Sans was my favourite font when I was 8 and made birthday invitations using it tho.
- stubish 7y agoNobody knows what font I was using when I typed this though. Better to use what is comfortable, or heck, more fun, than something boring because I'm supposed to be some kind of adult now.
- ebg13 7y agoThe font doesn't bring these feelings. You do. What if the problem is just that people have decided that it's ok to get upset about a font they don't like? Maybe people should try not to do that instead. > more appropriate fonts There are only two things that determine the appropriateness of a font: 1) Readability 2) The aesthetic desire of the person writing the message Nobody ever says that Comic Sans isn't readable, generally readability is considered to be one of its virtues. People just think that the aesthetic desire of the reader should triumph over the aesthetic desire of the writer, and there they are wrong.
- kazinator 7y agoCan't we design a font specifically for dyslexics without resorting to an ugly one that accidentally works, and that fixes b and d also?
- dsr_ 7y agoSure. You'll just need to differentiate [i, j, I, l , 1], [o, O, 0, Q, G], [a, e], [E, 3], [S, 2, 5, Z], [A, 4, h], [B, 8], [L, 7, J], [6, 9, , [R, P, d, b, p, q, g, y] , [M, m, w, v, u, n, W, V], [X, x, k, K].
- amarshall 7y agoThere have been a few (OpenDyslexic, Dyslexie, and others). However, to my knowledge no significant improvement has been shown over other, more common sans-serif fonts, despite several studies having been conducted.
- pugworthy 7y agoThey don't hate it because of a direct, well thought out opinion they've made. They just like to jump on the hate bandwagon because it's the thing to do.
- analog31 7y agoComic Sans, or something closely similar, seems to be a preferred font for chord symbols and other indications in sheet music. I encounter it a lot, playing jazz. Maybe there's something about readability under adverse conditions, e.g., under low light, at a distance, with lots of distractions. And like kindergarten material, the chord symbols in good music charts are printed big.
- davidgerard 7y ago> One particularly useful property, especially in the education sector, is that dyslexics typically find it decidedly easier to read. If you can find me an actual study on this, you'll be the first. The claim appears to be a common myth: https://www.tes.com/news/does-comic-sans-help-dyslexic-learners https://www.tes.com/news/does-comic-sans-help-dyslexic-learn...