Fonts: Serif or Sans-Serif

Which is more readable? Votes or statistics, anyone?

[MatthewHSE]

I normally use a sans-serif font, typically Arial, on my webpages. The idea is that, to me at least, it makes the page look cleaner and more polished. But lately, I've been thinking more about accessibility and would like some ideas on what kind of font to use.

So here are the questions:

1. What is your personal preference between sans-serif and serif fonts?

2. Are any statistics available regarding which type of fonts most visitors prefer?

[txbakers]

There was a very long discussion of this topic just recently here.

[webmasterworld.com...]

For the web, sans-serifs are cleaner, in my opinion. I don't use any serif fonts anywhere.

Verdana is actually my first choice, arial second.

[BlobFisk]

Usability News did a study on this:

A Comparison of Two Computer Fonts: Serif versus Ornate Sans Serif [psychology.wichita.edu]

[limbo]

I choose sans serif too - there are a lot of useablility studies on this <added>See Blobfisks post</added> - print and web do not produce the same results - which I guess is not too surprising - as they rarely do.

Arial > Verdana - in that order - if only because of the mild inconsistency in the serif on the capital I and J. (yes I know - spot the pedantic bloke)

Although smaller Verdana sizes display better than any other 'standard' fonts - and verdana seems to handle legibility with attributes like <em> and <strong> in smaller font sizes

Ta

Limbo

[georgeek]

Research shows no reliable differences in reading speed or user preferences between 10-point Times Roman, Georgia serif fonts, Helvetica, or Verdana sans serif fonts. Ref: Boyarski, D., Neuwirth, C., Forlizzi, J., and Regli, S.H. (1998). A study of fonts designed for screen display, CHI 98 Conference Proceedings, 87-94. Also there is evidence, that I cannot find the ref for right now, that mixing serif and sans serif fonts within the text decreases reading speed.

[Wilma]

Personally, I prefer sites that let my browser set the font.

That's especially true for any layout where I enlarge the text, either because

• The font size is too small (I have a big screen but sit far from it), or
  
• The fixed column width is too wide for easy reading.

A font that's perfectly readable at normal size may become difficult to read at larger sizes.

People seem to differ a lot in what they find easy to read. I know a lot of people who prefer sans serif for screens; I prefer serifs. Many people like Arial; I read Verdana more easily. I surf with serif fonts with large x-heights* such as Palatino, Poppl-Pontifex, and Georgia. These enlarge nicely on-screen.

Testing! We need real-world testing, based on what people actually do on alternate versions of real web pages!

If you intend your pages to get printed out, make sure your printer versions use a serif font such as Times or Times New Roman. Given an otherwise good layout, reading comprehension is almost 6 times better [webmasterworld.com] on paper than for sans serif (67% vs. 12%).

* x-height: The height of a font's lower-case x compared to the height of the complete font from tallest ascender (t, d, l) to lowest descender (j,q, y). Fonts with large x-heights, such as Verdana, are more readable, especially at smaller sizes.