[IxDA Discuss] Arial vs Vernada?

[Andrei Herasimchuk]

On Jan 8, 2008, at 12:42 PM, Jeff Seager wrote:

> For me, perceived legibility is important because I serve users with
> visual impairments that range from peripheral vision loss to total
> blindness.

The issue though is that "perceived legibility" is determined by the  
total of all typographic settings, which includes leading, kerning,  
color, rivers, line length, contrast and even composition rules...  
plus other variables tossed into the mix as well. Testing only the  
"type face" is effectively useless.

This report uses a false premise as the basis for it's findings. As  
result, the report itself is pretty much useless. It's like the old  
research rule: Garbage data in, garbage data out. (Or something to  
that effect.)

> Less than half of the study has any merit from my point of view, but
> those bits may be worth knowing.

This type of report is actually more harmful than helpful because  
those that conducted it seem to understand little about the topic  
they are researching. It's worse that they put it out there so that  
others who may not know better derive inappropriate conclusions from it.

> Based on some experience with low-vision users, I don't
> think the "perceived legibility" results would change much unless we
> added another font designed specifically for people with impaired
> vision. As far as I know, that font doesn't yet exist.

We have plenty of type faces to work with. Even Arial as a web font  
is tolerable if inelegant from a typographic point of view.  But it's  
not the font face that's the problem. It's the typography, or lack or  
proper typographic elegance, as implemented in the design of most  
digital products that impacts legibility, perceived or otherwise.

I highly recommend Robert Bringhurst's "The Elements of Typographic  
Style." It's a thousand times more valuable than this poorly  
conducted research study.

-- 
Andrei Herasimchuk

Principal, Involution Studios
innovating the digital world

e. andrei at involutionstudios.com
c. +1 408 306 6422