But that is not true: a very first result in a quick search shows a marked increase in reading speed with serif fonts: https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Figur

But that is not true: a very first result in a quick search shows a marked increase in reading speed with serif fonts: https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Figure-2-Comparison-of-readability-in-time-between-Serif-and-Sans-serif-fonts-of_fig1_50853367 https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Figure-2-Comparison-of-r... There are more, but OP claims to dispute this study among others, and while I am very curios and have added it to my reading list, if somebody has already read and can highlight what was wrong with all the previous studies, that'd be great (that was the ask all along). For instance, in this very study, Verdana (a sans serif font) is ranked best due to low mental effort, but an average reading speed is much better for serif fonts: I would like to see even larger x-height fonts than Georgia — eg. Baskerville — tested as well. Perhaps sans serif fonts are taken down by the worst ones. I guess I'll need to read the OP's full 160 pages to get my answer.