Forum Moderators: phranque
should I go with the classic look? On my site it will not be a lot of reading, mostly paragraphs of 2-4 sentences. The paragraphs are divided by other things too so it breaks the monotony.
Recap if you don't want to read the whole article:
Times New Roman is easier to read but people prefer to read Verdana. So if you want people to understand your site use Times (Tahoma is even better). But if you want people to like your site, use Verdana.
PS. Comic sans came as the third preference . . . It seems there is no accounting for taste.
I come from a graphic design and printing industry background before the age of the Internet and one of my first questions was "what's the deal with serif type?" Serifs are **supposed** to actually increase legibility by forming a line along the baseline that the eye follows. Don't know if I agree, but that's the answer if ever asked on some test somewhere . . . hehe . . .
To answer the Q, T.N.R. has actually been requested by a few customers, and I often throw it in because I'm just plain sick of the sans-serif families. (High tech research, huh?:-) )
Since discovering CSS I have never used a font without css styling. The different OSs and browsers make it the best clarity control at a web designers disposal.
And what is design without style?
Times New Roman is easier to read but...
There have been a lot of rumours floating around about the serifs rendering on 72/96 dpi monitors but I think the rejection of serifed fonts comes more from a desire to seperate online publications from old offline rags. People online want something different, modern and that is why I think people prefer a serif font online. From what I have read, serifs help keep the eye moving from letter to letter and enhance readability and comprehension and I have only run into a few rare exceptions to why that would be different online.
I have a suggestion: use it, but don't force the issue. I'll better clarify that: most machines have Times New Roman set as the system default, and very few users override that default - not least because most websites already do so.
So, I would ensure that you do not specify any font-family at all for your site paragraph text. That way, most users will get Times New Roman, and the few who are rabidly opposed to it will get their alternative default.
There are a few sites which use this method, the most obvious one I know is Slashdot.
Andy Hume makes the case for styling Times New Roman to make it more attractive: [usabletype.com...]Thanks very much for that very useful article. I use line spacing quite regularly, but the effect of the other modifiers is much more noticable that i would have expected.
Most of my readers use IE though, so the more subtle effects will be lost on them....
My screen style sheets typically sans-serif fonts, while my print style sheets use Times New Roman. Same content, two different mediums.
The winner (a sans serif font) and loser (an "ornate" font) differ by 40 seconds out of about 5 minutes.
It is interesting, however, that Times, the most popular default font for word processing packages, has consistently ranked low in preference across all of our studies.
For my money Katana_one has the right idea......
If you specify a 'sans serif' font you will get the default sans serif, which may or may not be Arial, when you don't specify the serif state of your font your default may well be TNR, but there is always the odd chance that it may not be. Probably best to specify, 'serif' or 'sans serif', or give your preferrence plus the default to fall back on.
It might be worth mentioning that, I have no personal interest or preferrence for any font, just a sad interest in reading survey results (albeit old ones) clearly. That particular survey report I did read 4 years ago.
I guess the font you choose should be the best percieved one for the job in hand. Kind of like 'Horses for courses'
Just a couple more euros worth......;)
