Re: Serif vs. sans serif

Quoth Boudewijn Rempt:
> On Wed, 27 Oct 1999, Don Blaheta wrote:
> > Legend has it that studies have been done showing that serif fonts are
> > easier to read.  I would guess this has something to do with providing a
> > more distinctive shape for the eye to grok.
>
> For Latin script this is marginally true. We subscribe to Trouw, a
> Dutch newspaper that used a sans-serif fount (but with thick-thin
> alteration in the stems) for everything, and it was quite easy to
> read.
Quoth Barry Garcia:
> Anyway, I actually find serif and sans serif fonts equal in the
> readability.
As I understood it, the issue was not one of people noticing one to be
worse than the other, but that in controlled tests, people tended to
read somewhat faster, with fewer mistaken words and marginally better
comprehension, if the script was serif.

On the other hand, Boudewijn may have a point, in that it may be the
thick-thin alteration usually present in serif fonts (but not all, cf.
courier) that improves the readability; or at least, that might be part
of it, and that can certainly be present in sans serif fonts and *is*
present in (some versions of) most if not all foreign scripts I've seen.

--
-=-Don Blaheta-=-=-dpb@cs.brown.edu-=-=-<http://www.cs.brown.edu/~dpb/>-=-
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