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Subject:Re: Favorite/Recommended Fonts From:Peter Martin <peterm -at- FOXBORO -dot- COM -dot- AU> Date:Thu, 8 Apr 1999 11:32:29 +1000
At 13:19 7/04/99 -0700, Jeanne A. E. DeVoto wrote:
>At 5:30 PM -0700 4/6/99, Peter Martin wrote:
>>The reading research I've read doesn't support that view. (See Wheildon's
>>"Text and Layout"). Wheildon's research (repeatable: anyone want to
>>try it out with proper controls and statistics ?) shows good comprehension
>>levels dropped from 67% for serif fonts to 12% for sans serif on this
>>group tests..
>
>Which serif and sans serif fonts, and for what medium? It's an easy guess
>that typeset Palatino on paper will be more readable than typeset Helvetica
>on paper...but I wouldn't take that as saying anything useful about the
>readability of a slab serif font vis-a-vis Optima on paper, or the
>readability of anything on screen.
I frankly don't see why it is an "easy guess"... In fact, my suggestion
is that there are far too many guesses, urban myths, and established
mindsets in this area.
Your point about possible differences between paper and screen
is well taken: I think this area should be subject to research,
(and suggested as much here recently). But to reveal my "fireside"
mindset, I would personally think that the difference between paper and
screen is probably much less than differences between different font usages
and layout styles....
Wheildon specifies his methods in some detail in his book.
I know he used Corona and Helvetica in extensive tests (conducted
over a period of years and good statistical design).
>I've been able to find very little research on this subject, and most has
>been extremely limited in scope. I'm not too keen on generalizing from
>"Helvetica" to "sans serif fonts". Nor from results on paper to results on
>glass.
OK. Know any research showing the difference between paper and glass?
That's part of my point.
> Nor from comprehension results for running text to readability
>results for *all* text; comprehension and retention are also important for
>callouts and headings, to take two examples, but the physical and
>psychological mechanisms are very different from those used for reading
>paragraphs of prose for comprehension.
>
Well again: how much do we know about the extent of these "different"
physical and psychological mechanisms apart from fireside speculation ?
But the reference cited above was to research about +body+ text. In fact,
there are suggestions that sans serif seems not just OK, but perhaps
slightly better than serif fonts for comprehension of headings and maybe
tables.
Do have a look at the book. It comes well recommended, to say the
least (..in fact, excessively so, in the latest edition).
--
Peter Martin, Contract Tech. Writer peterm -at- foxboro -dot- com -dot- au
+61 2 9818 5094 (home) 0408 249 113 (mobile) peterm -at- zeta -dot- org -dot- au
