Comments on: Question of the week: What's the best font for the Web?

By: Dan Gaines

Dan Gaines — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 16:57:19 +0000

I liked Verdana for reasons cited above, but now I wish I took the test without knowing the names. I might have recognized a couple, but now I yearn for a slightly more objective way to see what I like.

By: 201.234.238.177

201.234.238.177 — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 13:25:17 +0000

Arial, definitely, although I think any font without a serif is good for screen reading. I think it’s easier to read if the letters don’t seem to be linked to each other combined with the flicker of the screen.

By: Steven Ng

Steven Ng — Wed, 04 Jun 2008 22:25:00 +0000

Personally I prefer Arial which I am using for all my webpages. It look nice to me

By: Noah Barron

Noah Barron — Tue, 03 Jun 2008 13:56:27 +0000

It’s a shame that ‘faces don’t transmit the depth of information and context on the web that they do in print. I love reading Edward Tufte (The Visual Display of Quantitative Information, Envisioning Information) wax eloquent about using Gill Sans or Bembo in his books, but with screens we still seem stuck in the land of maximum compatibility and legibility, concerns that print only has to fix on the back end.

Perhaps e-ink formats like the (shudder) Kindle will liberate (hyper) text from its default font doldrums.

–Noah

By: 24.203.225.157

24.203.225.157 — Tue, 03 Jun 2008 00:29:42 +0000

None of the above. Instead, allow users’ browsers to choose their preferred font for them. I have my default set to Georgia. Others have it on Times New Roman.

Unless you have an overwhelming reason to override a user’s default choice, don’t.

By: 71.139.28.174

71.139.28.174 — Mon, 02 Jun 2008 12:01:33 +0000

How about “comic sans journalism” given the quality the the later.

By: 149.152.36.120

149.152.36.120 — Mon, 02 Jun 2008 10:21:35 +0000

I prefer Georgia for body copy (though at a slightly larger-than-default size) and Verdana otherwise. That said, typeface selection is far from the only thing that should be considered when designing type for Web sites and many fail to realize as much. More important are line length and line height, in particular.

By: 65.197.174.82

65.197.174.82 — Mon, 02 Jun 2008 09:12:21 +0000

The serif vs. sans-serif debate has been thoroughly tested by usability researchers (including myself). While in print serif fonts seem to have a slight advantage (giving better visual cues), online (probably because of the nature of the display) this difference does not exist. Reading speeds online were not statistically different between serif and sans-serif.

It is therefore ok to use either, so long as you do it consistently. Consistency within the body of the text is key. You can use a different font type for headers vs. body text, and so forth – but within a given paragraph, you should not switch font families or types. It slows reading time and distracts the reader, reducing the usability of your site and the likelihood they will continue to read or return. Companies that always show their name in Georgia or some-such, even in the body of their Arial text, are hurting their branding more than they help it.

By: Randy Reddick

Randy Reddick — Mon, 02 Jun 2008 08:17:47 +0000

Seeking a one-size-fits-all solution for the Web does violence to one of the most important attributes of the Web – narrow “casting” / user friendliness. Even if that were not the case, and you approached Web sites as though they were any other “publication,” you need to take into account 1) your audience 2) your message 3) the specific content and 4) your own mission, pretty much in that order. On item 3, I happen to use/like Verdana and MS Trebuchet a lot because they are eminently readable on screen. But they are both expanded faces (especially Verdana) and may not work well if you are delivering tabular data that calls for a more condensed face. MS Trebuchet borders on the avant-garde in design and may not be well received by staid, conservative audiences.

By: 59.178.98.50

59.178.98.50 — Mon, 02 Jun 2008 06:43:20 +0000

I would go for Verdana; it is more readable, elegant and easy on the eye.

Dr. N K Trikha, INDIA