atw: Re: Font choice and comprehension

Many companies commission fonts for themselves, Siemens, Metso are two
companies I have worked for that have pursued this paradigm. Both
incidentally, had fonts created in sans-serif form.

 

I have been using a combination of fonts in my templates for some years,
mostly where possible not Arial and Times New Roman. I have used Garamond
fonts, Shruti, AvantGarde, Palatino Linotype (an excellent serif font),
Tahoma and Verdana. In every case, the documents have been well received by
users. As for retention, well, in some cases I can't really say how they
have been used. Although with the Dapsco templates I have created, I will be
able to gauge that over the longer term.

 

My drift with documentation suites now is towards soft-copy delivery of
print documents, so I am concerned about the issues of reading print created
documents on line. In this dual situation, I am selecting fonts like
Palatino, because they don't look cramped in a pdf, and still print nicely.

 

There are some fonts that draw you in, others that send you away, and some
are just made for a purpose. I spend a bit of time with Linotype, and am
slowly learning what is meant to work with what to convey the message you
intend to.

 

Regards;

Warren

 

From: austechwriter-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:austechwriter-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Christine Kent
Sent: Thursday, 14 August 2008 14:26
To: austechwriter@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: atw: Re: Font choice and comprehension

 

I would be interested to know the same thing.  I have cruised around the web
in the past looking for stuff, but not found anything meaningful.  What I
did discover is that Microsoft themselves don't use Calibri - they use Segoe
Ui.  It was very hard to find it to download back when I was researching
this - don't know if you can get it now as Microsoft was trying to keep it
all for themselves.  It's a nice (sans serif) font.

 

Christine

 

From: austechwriter-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:austechwriter-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of
damian.forlani-brennan@xxxxxxxxxx
Sent: Thursday, 14 August 2008 2:00 PM
To: austechwriter@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: atw: Re: Font choice and comprehension

 

I have been following the thread with a great deal of interest.  I am
currently looking at redesigning some long-standing Word 2003 templates for
2007 compatibility and the question of switching from Arial to Calibri is
still open.  I have been using Word 2007 for a while (at least at home) and
like Christine Kent while I now much prefer the default Calibri font it did
take a bit of getting used to.  The question remains one of what is best for
our end users and I was curious on what if any research went into
Microsoft's font selection and what they did to assess the readability
issues with the font.

 

Sincerely

 

Damian Forlani-Brennan 
Team Leader - Technical Writing 

L-3 Communications Nautronix Limited   ABN 28 009 019 603 
108 Marine Terrace, Fremantle, WA 6160, Australia 
T +61 (0) 8 9431 0036, F +61 (0) 8 9430 5901 
E  <mailto:damian.forlani-brennan@xxxxxxxxxx>
damian.forlani-brennan@xxxxxxxxxx 

www.L-3Com.com/Nautronix 

 

  _____  

From: austechwriter-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:austechwriter-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Christine Kent
Sent: Thursday, 14 August 2008 11:46 AM
To: austechwriter@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: atw: Re: Font choice and comprehension

I think there is a range of variables, not just serif and sans serif to
consider.   There is the question of precisely which fonts are tested.  If
the tests just used Helvetica and Times Roman, then obviously Times Roman is
going to win.  But if new tests were done now between Cambria and Calibri, I
would guess that Calibri would win hands down.  Fonts are evolving all the
time, and serif and sans serif may not even be the principal issue.

 

And, as others have mentioned, there is also the issue of how accustomed you
become to particular fonts.

 

I fell in love with Comic Sans because I found it so easy to read, but was
never able to use it because it is "too girly" for general use.  So I was
thrilled when Microsoft came out with Calibri - a sans serif font - which I
have used ever since.  When I first started printing Calibri, I found the
printed page nice to look (preference) at but hard to read (effectiveness).
I got some kind of cross eyed double image after reading it for a while.
Now that I am accustomed to it, I find it much easier to read.  In contrast
I now find Times New Roman so hard to read that I will even convert a
document across to Calibri to make it easier and faster for me.  Over that
time, I have also developed a preference for Arial over Times New Roman - in
other words, my "eye" has become re-trained to sans serif.

 

I am very aware I am talking "preference" here, but as we work with words
all the time, our sense of "preference" maybe closer to "effectiveness" than
most.

 

So I would want to see research that covers all the variables - lots of
different fonts, tested over time to deal with habituation, and over a wide
range of cultural and ethnic types, with an equal representation of male and
female, to deal with style and preference issues (blokes prefer Arial,
tweetie birds prefer Comic Sans - you know - that kind of stuff).

 

Christine

 

 

From: austechwriter-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:austechwriter-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Geoffrey Marnell
Sent: Thursday, 14 August 2008 8:17 AM
To: austechwriter@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: atw: Font choice and comprehension

 

Hello austechies,

In the late 1980s, editor and publisher Colin Wheildon conducted a number of
experiments to determine if font, and the style of font, can significantly
affect readers' comprehension. He published his results in "Type and Layout"
(which was reissued in 2005). One startling result of Wheildon's research
was that serif fonts were not just more readable than sans serif fonts
(which most book designers already accepted) but that serif fonts
substantially improved readers' comprehension. That is, when asked questions
about a text, readers could answer more questions correctly if the text they
were given was set in a serif font.

Question: does anyone know of subsequent research that has corroborated (or
falsified) Wheildon's results? 

Cheers

Geoffrey Marnell
Principal Consultant
Abelard Consulting Pty Ltd
T: (+61 3) 9596 3456
F: (+61 3) 9596 3625
W: http://www.abelard.com.au <http://www.abelard.com.au/>

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