> -----Original Message from Rick Hobson-----
> Besides, no one should use a serif font for rendering a large
> body of text, they are _all_ unsuitable. Sans-serif fonts are generally
> accepted as much more readable and "user-friendly".
hmmmm. IMHO it's much more complicated than that. Depends on the actual
design of the font, as Philip already mentioned, and the audience.
"Older Adults are more accurate with, and prefer larger font sizes. They
also prefer sans serif fonts over serif fonts. As discussed by Bernard,
Liao, and Mills (2001) reading online documents (about 2 pages), older
adults significantly preferred the larger, 14-point font size (see Figure 4
below). In this study, serif fonts (Georgia and Times New Roman) were
compared to sans serif fonts (Arial and Verdana) at 12- and 14-points. The
14-point fonts were found to be more legible, promote faster reading, and
were preferred to the 12-point fonts. Also, at the 14-point size, serif
fonts tended to support faster reading.
The sans serif fonts were, however, generally /more/ preferred than the
serif fonts. This finding is supported by Sorg (1985), which found that
older adults preferred to read Helvetica, which is a sans serif font similar
to Arial, compared to Century Schoolbook, which is a serif font. "
- http://psychology.wichita.edu/optimalweb/text.htm
Regards,
Matt
[nb: post *trimmed*]
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