3 ms·

Although the "Moon"'s font is less boring, it almost shouts "don't read me" when more than a couple of words are displayed with it. And it also seems grotesquel

Although the "Moon"'s font is less boring, it almost shouts "don't read me" when more than a couple of words are displayed with it. And it also seems grotesquely unrealistic - nobody would use such a font to display anything useful in real life, even in future.

crispyambulance 5y ago
OK, but it's not about legibility here. It's about creating a feeling. Fonts like other graphic elements CAN communicate feeling in addition to whatever they spell out. The case of Moon and Alien, it communicates a non-empathic "Company" that has a lot to hide. A company that is literally cryptic to it's own employees, of course they're going to have unreadable user-hostile fonts. A real-life analogy might be something like UI's from Oracle EBS (enterprise business suite): Horrific, outdated, grey-blah swing interfaces from the 90's that have tentacles in every aspect of employee work-life from vacation-requests to procurement, to bonuses and customer relationships.
- qwerty456127 5y ago
  By the way I always loved Swing interfaces and always felt like they are incredibly cozy, emotionally warm and also tidy at the same time. Here[1] is a picture of Oracle EBS. To me it seems beautiful (literally). And if I look at the more classic Swing style here[2] I almost feel urge to run around naked and scream about how damn beautiful it is. I certainly want every app I use and the OS itself to be entirely in this design and I would even pay just for that (because I feel like that would boost my psychological well-being and productivity). So, given our perception of this same UI is on the opposite extremes I conclude this is highly subjective. [1] https://cdn.app.compendium.com/uploads/user/e7c690e8-6ff9-102a-ac6d-e4aebca50425/c3cad7e2-7cbe-4b55-882e-5169b97305c7/Image/648f8600b5a7411c7878e9323ce365e5/ebs_jws_mfss.png https://cdn.app.compendium.com/uploads/user/e7c690e8-6ff9-10... [2] https://docs.oracle.com/cd/E37069_01/html/E37073/figures/ide-profiling-tools.png https://docs.oracle.com/cd/E37069_01/html/E37073/figures/ide...
  - jhbadger 5y ago
    While I don't share your enthusiasm for Swing, I understand it in principle because I really love the NextStep UI with its 3D effects and yet I've met people who think it is ugly.
  - crispyambulance 5y ago
    Understood... yes, it's all subjective, even if that screenshot makes me vomit a little! FWIW, you aren't showing that text often overflows it's textbox and you can't actually see what's in it without putting your cursor in and moving it to the end of the text. They didn't have the concept of expanding to fit content back then? or maybe most corporations can't afford the oracle consultant that will do it for them ! :-) It's OK though, most of the time you can just export to excel with a few clicks. Of course, such applications require lots of tuning, and though they might have been cozy 20 years ago, they seem harsh and burdensome today because no one bothers to change stuff any more. You're just supposed to conform to it.
    - lazide 5y ago
      You can totally expand to resize based on content, among many other tricks. That would require someone to care to do so, which is probably the bigger problem.
sidpatil 5y ago
That's the OCR-A font. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OCR-A https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OCR-A). As you can guess from the name, it was designed for readability by both humans and computers. These days it looks like that font is more popular for graphic design than it is for actual OCR applications.
- jhbadger 5y ago
  See also that weird font still used on many US paper checks (E-13B). Half the movies in the 1970s used that as the default computer/future font. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnetic_ink_character_recognition https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnetic_ink_character_recogni...
  - atombender 5y ago
    The sci-fi font that showed up in the 60s was not MICR, but a bunch of typefaces inspired by it. Chief among these was Westminster [1] and Data 70. They were inspired by MICR, but the latter only has digits and a few control characters. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Westminster_(typeface) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Westminster_(typeface)
- mark-r 5y ago
  If you're doing actual OCR these days, it'll be sophisticated enough that it doesn't need a dedicated font. OCR-A has no practical purpose anymore other than to convey a certain look.

crispyambulance 5y ago

OK, but it's not about legibility here. It's about creating a feeling. Fonts like other graphic elements CAN communicate feeling in addition to whatever they spell out. The case of Moon and Alien, it communicates a non-empathic "Company" that has a lot to hide. A company that is literally cryptic to it's own employees, of course they're going to have unreadable user-hostile fonts. A real-life analogy might be something like UI's from Oracle EBS (enterprise business suite): Horrific, outdated, grey-blah swing interfaces from the 90's that have tentacles in every aspect of employee work-life from vacation-requests to procurement, to bonuses and customer relationships.

qwerty456127 5y ago
By the way I always loved Swing interfaces and always felt like they are incredibly cozy, emotionally warm and also tidy at the same time. Here[1] is a picture of Oracle EBS. To me it seems beautiful (literally). And if I look at the more classic Swing style here[2] I almost feel urge to run around naked and scream about how damn beautiful it is. I certainly want every app I use and the OS itself to be entirely in this design and I would even pay just for that (because I feel like that would boost my psychological well-being and productivity). So, given our perception of this same UI is on the opposite extremes I conclude this is highly subjective. [1] https://cdn.app.compendium.com/uploads/user/e7c690e8-6ff9-102a-ac6d-e4aebca50425/c3cad7e2-7cbe-4b55-882e-5169b97305c7/Image/648f8600b5a7411c7878e9323ce365e5/ebs_jws_mfss.png https://cdn.app.compendium.com/uploads/user/e7c690e8-6ff9-10... [2] https://docs.oracle.com/cd/E37069_01/html/E37073/figures/ide-profiling-tools.png https://docs.oracle.com/cd/E37069_01/html/E37073/figures/ide...
- jhbadger 5y ago
  While I don't share your enthusiasm for Swing, I understand it in principle because I really love the NextStep UI with its 3D effects and yet I've met people who think it is ugly.
- crispyambulance 5y ago
  Understood... yes, it's all subjective, even if that screenshot makes me vomit a little! FWIW, you aren't showing that text often overflows it's textbox and you can't actually see what's in it without putting your cursor in and moving it to the end of the text. They didn't have the concept of expanding to fit content back then? or maybe most corporations can't afford the oracle consultant that will do it for them ! :-) It's OK though, most of the time you can just export to excel with a few clicks. Of course, such applications require lots of tuning, and though they might have been cozy 20 years ago, they seem harsh and burdensome today because no one bothers to change stuff any more. You're just supposed to conform to it.
  - lazide 5y ago
    You can totally expand to resize based on content, among many other tricks. That would require someone to care to do so, which is probably the bigger problem.

sidpatil 5y ago

That's the OCR-A font. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OCR-A https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OCR-A). As you can guess from the name, it was designed for readability by both humans and computers. These days it looks like that font is more popular for graphic design than it is for actual OCR applications.

jhbadger 5y ago
See also that weird font still used on many US paper checks (E-13B). Half the movies in the 1970s used that as the default computer/future font. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnetic_ink_character_recognition https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnetic_ink_character_recogni...
- atombender 5y ago
  The sci-fi font that showed up in the 60s was not MICR, but a bunch of typefaces inspired by it. Chief among these was Westminster [1] and Data 70. They were inspired by MICR, but the latter only has digits and a few control characters. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Westminster_(typeface) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Westminster_(typeface)
mark-r 5y ago
If you're doing actual OCR these days, it'll be sophisticated enough that it doesn't need a dedicated font. OCR-A has no practical purpose anymore other than to convey a certain look.