Font Choices for Readability
~ by Frances McColl Stewart

http://www.n-etiquette.com

The marriage of a font to a web page is not something to be undertaken lightly or with little thought. Your website message is largely text – and the font you choose is your website’s voice.

A font that is unreadable or difficult for your viewer is rude. Remember what your mother told you when your whispering excluded someone from your conversation? <G>

Consider your audience and be considerate of your audience.

The easiest font to read is the most familiar font. The best eyesight is generally due to the eyes being younger. Experimental fonts are in the same class as Flash, interesting attention getters when used purposefully on an appropriate site but out of place on a conservative community interest website.

Some viewers have difficulty adjusting even within a website to the use of different fonts. Whatever font you use should be used consistently. A general interest site would normally use from two to four typefaces on a page and restrict the number of sizes to two or three variations per typeface.

Upper case is easier to read - balance this with the 'tone of voice' that you are trying to establish. Interestingly, most people equate all caps in the body of a message as shouting at them but do not do this with headers or titles. This acceptance is most likely a throwback to street criers and news venders who would shout the main news of the day.

If your target audience is older, it is important to increase the contrast between the font and the background. Gray against yellow, for example is almost indistinguishable for those with beginning cataracts.

Color blindness, on the other hand affects 1 in 12 people in the general population. The most common is a red-green perception deficiency. There are websites offering help and tests for your site to enable you to combine various colors without losing over 8% of your audience. One of my favorites is Cal Henderson’s http://www.iamcal.com/toys/colors/

Studies have shown that sans-serif text is easier to read on the Web. Most surfers still have very limited screen resolution, which renders the additional strokes, or ‘serifs’, poorly. Unfortunately, in print media, the reverse is true. If the website in question needs to correlate newspaper ads and a website to ‘brand’ their look, concessions can be made in other areas to compensate. Contrast can be heightened between the background color and the font color; a larger font size may be chosen, etc. Studies done by ACM (Computing Machinery, Inc.), http://www.acm.org/sigchi/chi95/proceedings/intpost/tst_bdy.htm,   showed the most preferred fonts were Arial and MS Sans Serif at 9.75.

Fonts also carry emotional baggage with them. Meanings associated with a font can be used to alienate your visitor or to reinforce the message of your page.

Generally, sans-serif typefaces appear up-to-date. Serif typefaces appear established or conservative. Even within these two categories, though, fonts can be sassy, brassy, retiring or loud. The fashion in fonts has drifted toward a primitive / childish look in recent years, perhaps a backlash to the dark Gothic fonts previously prominent.

The Microsoft font "Comic Sans" can scream ‘amateur’ combined with some web design but can be extremely useful when you need a non-threatening appearance to a website that might be necessarily difficult for your audience. It has been used to great effect in some technical tutorials.

Some of the great new Harry Potter inspired fonts (such as Parseltongue, http://www.geocities.com/carpesaponem/aboutp.htm,  are lively fun, combining schoolboy script with (shudder) Magic! Unfortunately, they are all but illegible in smaller sizes. I have a weakness for playful fantasy. Somewhere, there is a website idea that is perfect for their use. Until I find it, you all can expect this font on all of my greeting cards (in 12 point or up).

Now that you have put a lot of work and thought into your choice of font, it is time to face a painful reality.

If we want absolute control over the font that is actually seen on our site, we are limited to using the small selection of fonts that are installed on most people's computers. (Basic categories of font: serif, sans-serif, and monospace are generally interpreted as Times New Roman, Arial, and Courier New)

Alternatives are available when the font is an important part of your message. I have seen websites lately, where almost the entire home page was done in graphic files. (Be sure to do this in smaller sections to reduce load time for your page and to give yourself the option to put lots of alt tags on – search engines do not read text done graphically.) Also, some fonts are copyrighted in such a manner that it is illegal to embed them in a graphic.  (Be sure to check this.)

It is perhaps easier to specify fonts by listing options in order of choice. If your chosen font is unavailable, a standard default is requested next, followed by a font category keyword (serif, sans-serif, or monospace). Without this specific direction, not every Web browser will interpret, or translate, your design accurately.

Used correctly, politely and consistently, fonts will strengthen your website’s identity or ‘brand’. Font choices enable you to control not just your message – but the nuance, tone and ease of assimilation of your message.

Frances McColl Stewart is the Webmaster of N-etiquette.com and an editor of AnyFrontPage Bytes Ezine.   Subscribe to the ezine and get FREE FrontPage E-Books upon joining.