font family question

On Fri, 11 Aug 2006 21:36:48 +0100, Jack wrote:

What kind of research do you think might be possible?

Some sort of usability research (pro & cons, serif vs sans).
People tend to research silliest things.

But overlaid on all of these 'usefulness' criteria, there
is the question of taste, and it's really hard to specify a research
project that is about taste.

I was not referring to a taste issue, if so, I would use Verdana.

Coca-Cola has different formulas (amount of sugar) for many regions,
probably based on taste issue research (Google 11.900 for "taste
research").

--
buy, bought, bye

On 2006-08-11, Nije Nego wrote:

On Fri, 11 Aug 2006 16:40:40 -0400, Chris F.A. Johnson wrote:

Printed material does not necessarily use serif faces.

The studies I have seen showed serif typefaces to be marginally
easier to read than sans-serif, bit not by a significant amount.

In my own experience (I used to be a graphic designer), readers
like sans-serif as much as, if not more than, serif.

Being a graphic designer, did you design adds with slogans <h1> or you
worked on reading material (books, newspapers etc.)?

All of them. I mostly worked for newspapers and magazines, which
included designing advertising. I have also designed a few books, a
couple of which were done with sans-serif text, which received
favourable comments from many people.

--
Chris F.A. Johnson <http://cfaj.freeshell.org>
================================================== =================
Author:
Shell Scripting Recipes: A Problem-Solution Approach (2005, Apress)

In article <8j6vq3-8l1.ln1 (AT) xword (DOT) teksavvy.com>,
Chris F.A. Johnson <cfajohnson (AT) gmail (DOT) com> wrote:

Printed material does not necessarily use serif faces.

Most printed material does, if there's a lot of prosed to read.

The studies I have seen showed serif typefaces to be marginally
easier to read than sans-serif, bit not by a significant amount.

I once knew of similar studies -- for print media only. The serifs
on fonts are intended to guide the eyes along the line of text, to
prevent your eyes from jumping accidentally to adjacent lines of
text in a paragraph.

The effectiveness of serifs relies in part to the high resolution
available in print media. Video displays, on the other hand, have a
poor resolution, with pixels big enough to see. On video displays,
serifs do little more than introduce clutter into the text.

In my own experience (I used to be a graphic designer), readers
like sans-serif as much as, if not more than, serif.

Sans-serif is certainly more readable on a video display when
rendering paragraphs of prose. Serif is more readable when doing it
on paper.

For headings, or single lines by themselves, it doesn't really
matter.

-A

On 2006-08-12, axlq wrote:

In article <8j6vq3-8l1.ln1 (AT) xword (DOT) teksavvy.com>,
Chris F.A. Johnson <cfajohnson (AT) gmail (DOT) com> wrote:
Printed material does not necessarily use serif faces.

Most printed material does, if there's a lot of prosed to read.

The studies I have seen showed serif typefaces to be marginally
easier to read than sans-serif, bit not by a significant amount.

I once knew of similar studies -- for print media only. The serifs
on fonts are intended to guide the eyes along the line of text, to
prevent your eyes from jumping accidentally to adjacent lines of
text in a paragraph.

That's the theory, but in fact there is no significant difference
in readbility (I'm talking about print media).

The effectiveness of serifs relies in part to the high resolution
available in print media.

The studies do not show any such effectiveness.

Video displays, on the other hand, have a
poor resolution, with pixels big enough to see. On video displays,
serifs do little more than introduce clutter into the text.

In my own experience (I used to be a graphic designer), readers
like sans-serif as much as, if not more than, serif.

Sans-serif is certainly more readable on a video display when
rendering paragraphs of prose.

Probably.

Serif is more readable when doing it on paper.

Neither studies nor personal experience support that.

For headings, or single lines by themselves, it doesn't really
matter.

Agreed.

--
Chris F.A. Johnson <http://cfaj.freeshell.org>
================================================== =================
Author:
Shell Scripting Recipes: A Problem-Solution Approach (2005, Apress)

Chris F.A. Johnson <cfajohnson (AT) gmail (DOT) com> scripsit:

Serif is more readable when doing it on paper.

Neither studies nor personal experience support that.

You appear to be trolling. You refute a statement that has very often been
mentioned in this group and other discussions and sometimes backed up with
references. Yet you give no citations or references whatsoever.

If you are not trolling, we can expect a bunch of references from you. There
_have_ been studies on this matter, with varying results as can be expected
("readability" itself is a vague concept), but generally in the direction
that supports the statement that common serif fonts are more readable than
common sans-serif fonts, on paper. You'd need quite a many sources to even
question this seriously. But if you're trolling, you don't need references
and don't have one.

--
Jukka K. Korpela ("Yucca")
http://www.cs.tut.fi/~jkorpela/

On 2006-08-13, Jukka K. Korpela wrote:

Chris F.A. Johnson <cfajohnson (AT) gmail (DOT) com> scripsit:

Serif is more readable when doing it on paper.

Neither studies nor personal experience support that.

You appear to be trolling.

I'm sorry if it appears that way; it's not my intention.

You refute a statement that has very often been mentioned in this
group and other discussions and sometimes backed up with references.
Yet you give no citations or references whatsoever.

It has been many years (decades) since I read those studies. At the
time, the same statement was frequently trotted out. It was not more
valid then than it is now.

If you are not trolling, we can expect a bunch of references from you. There
_have_ been studies on this matter, with varying results as can be expected
("readability" itself is a vague concept), but generally in the direction
that supports the statement that common serif fonts are more readable than
common sans-serif fonts, on paper.

It's a statement that people believe only because it has been
repreated so often.

It has been so long that I cannot provide references, any more than
anyone else can provide references supporting it.

You'd need quite a many sources to even question this seriously.

Do you have any references supporting it? Just because something is
widely believed does not make it true.

But if you're trolling, you don't need references and don't have
one.

--
Chris F.A. Johnson <http://cfaj.freeshell.org>
================================================== =================
Author:
Shell Scripting Recipes: A Problem-Solution Approach (2005, Apress)

On Fri, 11 Aug 2006 17:40:18 +0200, Nije Nego wrote:

What is you favourite font family choice for pages with predominant text
content?
Which one is the most readable, with regards to body text <p> and what for
h1>?

I tend to use serif for <p> and sans for <hx>.

Regards.

Thanks everybody for their thoughts and experience.

I've noticed, since I've changed body text to serif, visit lengths
increased (not neccesarily connected to font-family, but ...) between
10-30%.

Regards.

--
buy, bought, bye