[WEB4LIB] RE: Fonts and zoom utilities (Re: Re: Web/ADA/uh oh...)

[Thomas Dowling]

>The theory I learned in graphic arts class was that the addition of
serifs
>created a horizontal line that sort of helps the eyes/brain glide along a
>line of type.  Tests confirm that we read faster and easier with serifs.
(Of
>course, that might be because when we learned to read it was from primers
>with serifed fonts.)

[This is probably the fifth time I've started drafting a version of this
post over the last two days.  Interesting study in work avoidance
behavior...]

The typographer and font designer Eric Gill (Gill Sans, Perpetua, Johanna)
said that we read best what we read most.  This seems to be true, but what
we read most depends on context.  Some texts have such immediacy that
their message must be intelligible even from a distance, at small type
sizes, under poor reading conditions, or despite our preoccupation with
other matters.  This is why signs, headlines, and phone books tend to be
set in fonts that emphasize clarity and simplicity.

So why aren't all texts set this way?  While the conventional wisdom about
serifs helping the eye move along is widely held, it doesn't seem
particularly logical (they don't provide nearly as strong a line as the
baseline and x-height of the typeface), and it contradicts what I recall
from an education course long ago on the psychology of reading, were we
learned that the eye bounces up, down, and all around while the brain
perceives only a smooth left-to-right motion.

But this is where Gill's maxim comes back in.  In reading paragraphic
passages, readers increase their efficiency through, among other things,
recognizing word shapes rather than letter shapes.  We get used to reading
books, magazines, and newspapers in serif fonts, so we get adept at
recognizing word shapes in serif fonts--so publishers keep using serif
fonts for those familiar contexts.  Any distracting change of shapes--even
if the result is more legible on a letter-by-letter basis--slows the
reading rate.

So book publishers haven't switched their house typeface to  Verdana or
Trebuchet, but stick with faces whose origins, in some cases, go back 200
to 400 years.  O'Reilly sets its Web design books in Garamond partly
because the works of Shakespeare were set in Garamond.  (No fooling.  We
have a facsimile of the First Folio title page on our system, and dang me
if it isn't set in Linotype Garamond 3.  Of course, O'Reilly uses Adobe
Garamond, but what the heck?)

Of course, all of this gets blown out of the water if some external factor
affects our ability to perceive either the letters or the words of a
typeface.  One such factor is onscreen display, which despite a claim made
on the list yesterday is typically about 1/1000th the resolution of
professionally printed text (72x72dpi vs 2400x2400dpi).  Then your font
selection has to take into account factors like the font's inate clarity
and how well its hinting handles low resolution rendering.


Thomas Dowling
OhioLINK - Ohio Library and Information Network
tdowling at ohiolink.edu