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Thread: Re: 508 Fonts
Number of posts in this thread: 3 (In chronological order)
From: Elizabeth J. Pyatt
Date: Tue, Feb 10 2009 1:40PM
Subject: Re: 508 Fonts
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There are a lot of user preferences, but I think one recommendation
is to ensure that the "x-height" (roughly the height of a lower-case
letter)and is not too small. You also want to ensure that characters
are not too thin.
In reality, I check the x-height and width for the lowercase "o". I
tend to think fonts with a robust "o" are a little more legible that
those with short or skinny o's. This applies to both serif and
sans-serif type
http://tlt.its.psu.edu/suggestions/accessibility/font.html#face
http://www.unc.edu/~jkullama/inls181/final/serif.html
Another area to look are are similar characters (e.g. 1 (one) vs. l
(ell) or 0 (zero) vs. O (capital O)). It's better if these ambiguous
pairs are designed to be distinct.
Arial is not a bad choice, but you can consider other fonts such as
Verdana (designed for monitor use), Tahoma or Trebuchet (this was
very popular a few years ago). Note that as display qualities
improve, you may have more latitude in font selection.
For serif fonts, I would recommend Palatino/Book Antiqua, Century
Schoolbok or Georgia over Times New Roman (see the x-height on the
"o" again).
Note that the reason serif fonts were first discouraged on the Web
was because they were rendered so horribly jagged in comparison to
print, but again improvements in display technology make it less of
an issue.
Hope this helps
Elizabeth
P.S. Beyond font face, you also need to consider font size (not too
small a point size) and font color (reasonable contrast with the
background).
--
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-Elizabeth J. Pyatt, Ph.D.
Instructional Designer
Education Technology Services, TLT/ITS
Penn State University
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From: Jukka K. Korpela
Date: Tue, Feb 10 2009 1:45PM
Subject: Re: 508 Fonts
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Elizabeth J. Pyatt wrote:
> There are a lot of user preferences,
and the important thing is that authors should not try too hard to override
user preferences, which can depend on different people's different
abilities, not just esthetic views.
> but I think one recommendation
> is to ensure that the "x-height" (roughly the height of a lower-case
> letter)and is not too small. You also want to ensure that characters
> are not too thin.
That's far too simplistic. In particular, favoring large x-height (which is
_not_ the height of a lower-case letter, even roughly - it is specifically
the height of _some_ lower case letters, namely those without ascenders and
descenders) typically leads to using Verdana, which is a poor choice since
it magically makes authors to set font size to something small.
--
Yucca, http://www.cs.tut.fi/~jkorpela/
From: Cliff Tyllick
Date: Wed, Feb 11 2009 8:40AM
Subject: Re: 508 Fonts
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Jukka K. Korpela wrote:
> important thing is that authors should not try too hard to override
> user preferences, which can depend on different people's different
> abilities, not just esthetic views.
Agreed. It should be within the user's control to change the default font.
> Verdana ... is a poor choice since
> it magically makes authors to set font size to something small.
Ignorance, not magic, causes this behavior. So we also need to educate those authors to:
(a) not follow one change that improves readability with another that impairs readability
(b) let each user choose the font face and size that works best for him or her under his or her current conditions
I myself have different settings on my desktop at work, my desktop at home, and my laptop. I have no disabilities, but under different conditions of monitor resolution and lighting, I have different preferences.
Cliff Tyllick
Web development coordinator
Agency Communications Division
Texas Commission on Environmental Quality
512-239-4516
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