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Here is that set of sans serifs:
- Arial
- Helvetica
- Geneva [Mac only, similar to Verdana]
- Verdana
- Trebuchet MS
All of the above run into minor problems with some sizings and stylings.
Verdana, for instance, looks very craggy with lots of aliasing on a Windows
PC in size
3, analagous to 12 pt type in print. Arial, starts to squeeze
characters together too much in the smallest size 1 and becomes more difficult
to read, especially
when compared to Verdana, which is one of the easiest to read in size 1.
But all of the above, compared to all other fonts, fare better and all are a compromise.
Our favorite font demo is showing how serif fonts like this one look when they are italicized and small. See?
And then there's the paragraph problem. Many times
in text-heavy sites, printed materials are translated into HTML text
on pages in their original paragraph form. Well, what's wrong with that
you say? And I say there is many times many things wrong with that.
One of the biggest aspects about reading a web page versus reading a
printed page is many times for most users, reading a web page is always
an option. Most all users including this one scans any page they are
browsing, first looking for any words or phrases that match the interest
that is being persued. If they don't find it right away, they move on.
And that special word or phrase might be hiding inside some big dense
paragraph. One with numerous embedded clauses and hyphen words. And
worst of all, big long words. Yes, the best web words are the shortest
ones because they are the easiest to scan and not stumble over. So the
point here is that big paragraphs have to be broken down into pieces
in order to have even a chance of being read by any intended audience.
Finally, we're willing to bet that if we could test this page with a
focus group audience, that most would disregard this paragraph because
of its length and the following one because it's latin gibberish. Therefore,
long paragraphs on a web page may as well be written in latin as far
as most visitors are concerned because they just won't read them.
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit. Nam nibh. Nunc
varius facilisis eros. Sed erat. In in velit quis arcu ornare laoreet.
Curabitur adipiscing luctus massa. Integer ut purus ac augue commodo commodo.
Nunc nec mi eu justo tempor consectetuer. Etiam vitae nisl. In dignissim
lacus ut ante. Cras elit lectus, bibendum a, adipiscing vitae, commodo
et, dui. Ut tincidunt tortor. Donec nonummy, enim in lacinia pulvinar,
velit tellus scelerisque augue, ac posuere libero urna eget neque. Cras
ipsum. Vestibulum pretium, lectus nec venenatis volutpat, purus lectus
ultrices risus, a condimentum risus mi et quam. Pellentesque auctor fringilla
neque. Duis eu massa ut lorem iaculis vestibulum. Maecenas facilisis elit
sed justo. Quisque volutpat malesuada velit. Nunc at velit quis lectus
nonummy eleifend. Curabitur eros. Aenean ligula dolor, gravida auctor,
auctor et, suscipit in, erat. Sed malesuada, enim ut congue pharetra,
massa elit convallis pede, ornare scelerisque libero neque ut neque. In
at libero. Curabitur molestie. Sed vel neque. Proin et dolor ac ipsum
elementum malesuada. Praesent id orci. Donec hendrerit. In hac habitasse
platea dictumst. Aenean sit amet arcu a turpis posuere pretium.
We are still amazed that there are people out there who haven't noticed
any of this, but just accept it subconsciously. When pointing this out
to a client, we always ask them "do you personally read long paragraphs
when you are browsing on the internet or do you mostly skip over them?"
The answer is always the same.
Tim Corwin
August, 2009
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