A light-hearted look at fonts. How we abuse them and how they can affect our reading speed and understanding. Tips included. By Louis Crowe
Those darn fonts can be hard to get right!
We spend more time reading at work than almost anything else... so you'd imagine we'd have got it right by now. Unfortunately not, the fonts and font sizes we use often conspire against us. They slow our reading and occasionally make us seem like fools.
"Darn". That is very different to "dam". Yet in Times New Roman, a default font, the r and the n actually touch creating what looks like an m. A yarn can become a yam, etc. A diplomatic incident was averted when someone pointed out that "the stupid dutch" was in fact written as "the stupid clutch"... but in Tahoma, font size 12, c l looks very like a d. There are lots of examples... would you prefer to be "torn in two ways" or "tom in two ways"? to have a clue or a due?
Font choice is critical for ease of reading. With the right font choice you will read faster, with less eye strain and greater concentration. Studies at ReadPal show that optimal formatting can double people's reading speed. Yet people still write digital articles in Times New Roman. Presumably, this is because Microsoft has (criminally!) used this as a default font in their templates. Times New Roman reads very well when printed but on-screen the little tails it adds to letters, (known as serifs), are clunky and indistinct on-screen. No wonder we print out documents just to read them. So, if you are sending an article please use Tahoma, Verdana or even Arial, they are far superior on-screen and perform just as well when printed. With the proper font choices we could save many a forest from being made into paper. A serif font can look classier when printed - but use Garamond instead. Read more...
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