Serif or san serif??

["Hart, Geoff" <Geoff-H -at- MTL -dot- FERIC -dot- CA>]

Ted Finch wondered: <<I am currently working on an online help system.  In
school we talked about using serif fonts for text and san serif for heading,
etc.   for looks and readability.  I always thought that this carried over
to the e-text as well. I have been hearing that studies say that sanserif is
easier or better when looking at e-texts.>>

As soon as you hear the phrase "studies show", immediately put a hand on
your wallet and cover your groin. <g>

The studies I've read (gotcha!) suggest that with modern displays, there's
no practically significant difference in readability between serif and sans
serif--assuming you're not biasing the comparison by choosing the worst
serif and the best sans serif. Many other typographic factors are so much
more important that the serif vs. sans serif question becomes meaningless,
even if there's a statistically significant difference. Moreover,
typographic studies are enormously context-dependent, and are often so
narrowly controlled that they don't have broad implications; conversely, the
ones that aren't narrowly controlled are statistically meaningless in many
cases.

Conclusion: Pick whatever fonts you know the users of your help system can
see (e.g., standard Windows fonts) and spend your time worrying about issues
such as chunking, scanning, white space, cross-referencing, indexing, etc.

--Geoff Hart, geoff-h -at- mtl -dot- feric -dot- ca
Forest Engineering Research Institute of Canada
580 boul. St-Jean
Pointe-Claire, Que., H9R 3J9 Canada 

"The opposite of a correct statement is a false statement. But the opposite
of a profound truth may well be another profound truth."--Niels Bohr,
physicist (1885-1962)

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Robohelp X3, from eHelp, lets you quickly and easily create 
professional Help systems for all your Windows and Web-based 
applications, including Net.

Buy RoboHelp Office X4 by June 13th and receive
$100 mail-in rebate, Plus FREE RoboHelp Plus Pack.

Order RoboHelp today: http://www.ehelp.com/techwr-l

---
You are currently subscribed to techwr-l as:
archive -at- raycomm -dot- com
To unsubscribe send a blank email to leave-techwr-l-obscured -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com
Send administrative questions to ejray -at- raycomm -dot- com -dot-  Visit
http://www.raycomm.com/techwhirl/ for more resources and info.