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Intend and purpose? I mean, it sounds so very subjective with no link to research that it matters that much assuming it’s good enough in the first place. Sure,
by jiehong 3y ago
Intend and purpose? I mean, it sounds so very subjective with no link to research that it matters that much assuming it’s good enough in the first place.
Sure, DIN or the typefaces used at the airport to guide pilots are extremely legible, and less ambiguous in their context.
But the difference between Fraktur and SF Pro is much bigger than between SF Pro and DIN for example. Plus, being on hundreds of millions of devices made it common so people got used to it.
Reminds me of the difference between Kai and Song font types in Chinese.
Is there any research with a graph of legibility over fonts? Any idea where the point of diminishing return is for different activities?
I do like a good programming font, but if I’m honest with myself, as long as the foundation is right, most differences are to accommodate one’s taste. I’ve yet to found a case where there was a bug because my font threw me off, or something.
Side note: I recall the first time I read digits written in the English style, and got tripped because the 7 looks like a 1 in my culture, because we all add a little horizontal bar in the middle. You can used to it, but on hand written notes, nobody would write an English 7, yet virtually all computer fonts only offer one version of it (Berkeley Mono offers both, in a mono space font!)
- detourdog 3y agoI would come across the studies of typefaces under the topic of human factors. A whole human factors industry exists with publications. A sliver of these studies regard typefaces and the legibility provided. There is plenty of data available on type face legibility.
- crispyambulance 3y agoFonts are also aesthetic expressions. This is intrinsically subjective and there's nothing wrong with that, nor should the practice of typography be dismissed because it lacks "research" into the utilitarian differences of fonts. It's not for everybody to fret about serif vs non-serif, and that's OK, you don't have to if you don't want to. But if you want to do mass communication that stuff starts to become important.
- throw0101c 3y ago> […] and got tripped because the 7 looks like a 1 in my culture, because we all add a little horizontal bar in the middle. A "crossed seven" if anyone is curious: * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arabic_numeral_variations#Other_variations https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arabic_numeral_variations#Othe... * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/7#Evolution_of_the_Arabic_digit https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/7#Evolution_of_the_Arabic_digi...
- GarnetFloride 3y agoThe Braille Institute has a a big interest in helping people with low vision and a few years ago commissioned a highly legible font Atkinson Hyperlegible https://brailleinstitute.org/freefont https://brailleinstitute.org/freefont They did a lot of work making sure it was easy to read by working with actual people.
- qhwudbebd 3y agoThe page itself is typeset in the font: a nice way to see it in action. The only really jarring idiosyncrasy for me is the backwards slash on the zero, instead of a forward slash. I wonder if there's a specific legibility argument for that, or whether one could just reflect the 0 to fix it without losing anything.
- teo_zero 3y agoI'd venture to guess it's to avoid confounding it with a Ø used in Scandinavian languages.
- TRiG_Ireland 3y agoYes, that is the exact reason. One of the designers mentions it here: https://youtu.be/wjE5eHLICzc?si=no+tracking&t=330 https://youtu.be/wjE5eHLICzc?si=no+tracking&t=330
- staticautomatic 3y agoI’ve used it professionally on some occasions and tend to reach for it when a) its purported value outweighs its crude utilitarian aesthetic, or b) I want to loudly signal my awareness of “inclusive design”.
- GarnetFloride 3y agoThere is no perfect typeface. Atkinson is a very effective body typeface, but does suffer as a headline. So use something else. It's just a variant of Helvetica, Arial, and a bunch of others. I do wish founderies would provide typeface variants with the principles of hyper legibility applied. A Times New Roman Hyperlegible could be really handy even though it was designed for the newspaper so it is good at being read at small sizes to pack more content in a column. Inclusive design shouldn't be an afterthought. The principles of hyper legibility came from hard won lessons from interstate signage, transit signage, and flight deck control design. If you design it in from the beginning inclusivity is free.
- awelotta 3y agoI found Sofie Beier's ATypi presentations to be in depth as well as humble about the lack of hard science in typography, but haven't looked too much into actual papers. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xAzFiyqNO4w https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xAzFiyqNO4w