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The difficulty I have with many so-called legible fonts is that they’re often not very readable. Legibility refers to how easily individual characters can be i

The difficulty I have with many so-called legible fonts is that they’re often not very readable. Legibility refers to how easily individual characters can be identified. But good readability depends on how easily your brain can recognize whole words—through pattern recognition of word shapes. When characters are too similar in shape and size, it becomes harder to distinguish the unique shape of each word, which reduces readability (which often happens with these highly legible fonts) — even if each individual letter is technically more clear.

maybebyte 1y ago
Interesting distinction there. I didn't know that was the difference between legibility and readability. I'd really like to hear more about this. Do you have experience with fonts that strike a better balance, or know of reading material that discusses this subject in more detail?
- tiffanyh 1y ago
  This is a complex topic. For example, if you grew up in an English-speaking country, your computer likely defaulted to Arial or Helvetica as its sans-serif font. Over time, your brain became familiar with how words looked in those typefaces—their proportions and shapes. Because fonts like Inter and SF share similar proportions, your brain finds them easier to process, which makes them feel more readable.
  - saltcured 1y ago
    I spent so many years reading the 6x13 "fixed" font in XTerm, starting with CRTs and moving over to LCDs. I don't think anything is more readable to me. It hit the sweet spot of being condensed enough for easy reading but still with highly legible individual characters too. I have always wished someone could have made a scalable version to bring it into the future of high resolution displays.
    - mfro 1y ago
      You might enjoy terminus: https://terminus-font.sourceforge.net/ https://terminus-font.sourceforge.net/ https://files.ax86.net/terminus-ttf/ https://files.ax86.net/terminus-ttf/
      - saltcured 1y ago
        Thanks. I tried it, but it doesn't feel right to me. I think there are a lot of small deviations from the font I remember. I even found a ~30 year old screenshot with some xterms in it, so I could verify that my memory isn't just distorted. The glyphs are different. But, the screenshot also feels a little foreign to me, so my memory may also be distorted ;-) At this point, I keep coming back to Noto Sans Mono Medium as my fallback.
        mfro 1y ago
        Yeah it's definitely a new font. But harkens back to fixed, I think.
    - untech 1y ago
      I like this: https://webdraft.hu/fonts/classic-console/ https://webdraft.hu/fonts/classic-console/ On HN: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40590910 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40590910
      - saltcured 1y ago
        That's interesting. If I'm not mistaken, it feels more like some old VGA text modes than it does like the old xterm fixed font though. It's kind of pleasing shapes at 12 point for me, but too small on my screens... incrementally scaling up to 13,14,15 seems to degrade the quality.
atoav 1y ago
Good observation, legibilty is not the same as readability. Hyperlegible fonts are used in places where it is crucial that the readers can identify the correct characters and/or short words – even if the readability suffers slightly. Readable fonts are for longer form texts where the flow of reading is more important than correctly identfying individual characters. Both have valid use cases and there are fonts who mange to do both pretty well.
ethan_smith 1y ago
This legibility vs readability distinction is why variable-width programming fonts like Proportional or Input Sans can actually reduce cognitive load during extended coding sessions despite sacrificing character grid alignment.
soneca 1y ago
Do you think Atkinson Hyperlegible specifically hurts readability? I am thinking about the regular one on text, not mono on code.
- oskarw85 1y ago
  Not OP but I set Atkinson Hyperlegible on my e-ink reader and it served me well. I feel my reading speed has improved. It is pretty wide though so to put more text on the page I decreased font height a bit.
wvh 1y ago
I agree, and can imagine using a different font depending on the (programming) language or purpose, yet each font being quite objectively better at that purpose. Some languages are a lot more similar to natural language, and some are more mathematical, technical or really need fixed width blocks to be readable. And then there are fonts that I don't like aesthetically and generally avoid, but come to the rescue in the wee hours of the morning when you really have to get something done and your eyes have gone blurry.
- jlokier 1y ago
  Which fonts do you think are helpful during those blurry-eyed early hours?
smusamashah 1y ago
As an Urdu speaker I love the Nastaliq font for its ability to give each word its own unique shape. When alphabets are knitted together, it doesn't just change total width of the word, it changes total height as well. Found a random website with urdu text in image form https://wp.nyu.edu/virtualurdu/the-clever-bird/ https://wp.nyu.edu/virtualurdu/the-clever-bird/

maybebyte 1y ago

Interesting distinction there. I didn't know that was the difference between legibility and readability. I'd really like to hear more about this. Do you have experience with fonts that strike a better balance, or know of reading material that discusses this subject in more detail?

tiffanyh 1y ago
This is a complex topic. For example, if you grew up in an English-speaking country, your computer likely defaulted to Arial or Helvetica as its sans-serif font. Over time, your brain became familiar with how words looked in those typefaces—their proportions and shapes. Because fonts like Inter and SF share similar proportions, your brain finds them easier to process, which makes them feel more readable.
- saltcured 1y ago
  I spent so many years reading the 6x13 "fixed" font in XTerm, starting with CRTs and moving over to LCDs. I don't think anything is more readable to me. It hit the sweet spot of being condensed enough for easy reading but still with highly legible individual characters too. I have always wished someone could have made a scalable version to bring it into the future of high resolution displays.
  - mfro 1y ago
    You might enjoy terminus: https://terminus-font.sourceforge.net/ https://terminus-font.sourceforge.net/ https://files.ax86.net/terminus-ttf/ https://files.ax86.net/terminus-ttf/
    - saltcured 1y ago
      Thanks. I tried it, but it doesn't feel right to me. I think there are a lot of small deviations from the font I remember. I even found a ~30 year old screenshot with some xterms in it, so I could verify that my memory isn't just distorted. The glyphs are different. But, the screenshot also feels a little foreign to me, so my memory may also be distorted ;-) At this point, I keep coming back to Noto Sans Mono Medium as my fallback.
      - mfro 1y ago
        Yeah it's definitely a new font. But harkens back to fixed, I think.
  - untech 1y ago
    I like this: https://webdraft.hu/fonts/classic-console/ https://webdraft.hu/fonts/classic-console/ On HN: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40590910 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40590910
    - saltcured 1y ago
      That's interesting. If I'm not mistaken, it feels more like some old VGA text modes than it does like the old xterm fixed font though. It's kind of pleasing shapes at 12 point for me, but too small on my screens... incrementally scaling up to 13,14,15 seems to degrade the quality.

atoav 1y ago

Good observation, legibilty is not the same as readability. Hyperlegible fonts are used in places where it is crucial that the readers can identify the correct characters and/or short words – even if the readability suffers slightly. Readable fonts are for longer form texts where the flow of reading is more important than correctly identfying individual characters. Both have valid use cases and there are fonts who mange to do both pretty well.

ethan_smith 1y ago

This legibility vs readability distinction is why variable-width programming fonts like Proportional or Input Sans can actually reduce cognitive load during extended coding sessions despite sacrificing character grid alignment.

soneca 1y ago

Do you think Atkinson Hyperlegible specifically hurts readability? I am thinking about the regular one on text, not mono on code.

oskarw85 1y ago
Not OP but I set Atkinson Hyperlegible on my e-ink reader and it served me well. I feel my reading speed has improved. It is pretty wide though so to put more text on the page I decreased font height a bit.

wvh 1y ago

I agree, and can imagine using a different font depending on the (programming) language or purpose, yet each font being quite objectively better at that purpose. Some languages are a lot more similar to natural language, and some are more mathematical, technical or really need fixed width blocks to be readable. And then there are fonts that I don't like aesthetically and generally avoid, but come to the rescue in the wee hours of the morning when you really have to get something done and your eyes have gone blurry.

jlokier 1y ago
Which fonts do you think are helpful during those blurry-eyed early hours?

smusamashah 1y ago

As an Urdu speaker I love the Nastaliq font for its ability to give each word its own unique shape. When alphabets are knitted together, it doesn't just change total width of the word, it changes total height as well. Found a random website with urdu text in image form https://wp.nyu.edu/virtualurdu/the-clever-bird/ https://wp.nyu.edu/virtualurdu/the-clever-bird/