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Re: Usability: Serif and Sans-Serif font faces?

Subject: Re: Usability: Serif and Sans-Serif font faces?
From: Dick Margulis <margulisd -at- comcast -dot- net>
To: "TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com>
Date: Fri, 14 May 2004 18:41:16 -0400




Bonnie Granat wrote:


It is the serifs themselves that aids reading by guiding the eye
almost subliminally to the next letter and acting almost as a frame
(like a picture frame) for a letter.


And then she wrote:


As background for someone who sought basic knowledge about what
purpose serifs served, it is not an "urban myth." It's historical
fact. The issue under discussion in my post wasn't whether, in fact,
one style is more readable than the other, but the basic facts that
are pretty clear in their reality *historically.*


And I reply again, collegially, because I always feel that Bonnie and get along okay, that this is balderdash.

Serifs began as a mitigation by stonecutters for the problem of irradiation--the tendency of cracks to extend diagonally from the ends of chiseled stems--in Roman capital letters (letters inscribed in the capitals--heads--of commemorative columns). It is a happy coincidence that they serve precisely the same purpose in letterpress printing--preventing the irradiation of ink spiderwebs from the ends of stems in soft paper. As there is virtually no letterpress printing going on these days, that particular reason for the use of serifs is pretty much moot.

The conceit that serifs are there to "guide the eye" is ahistorical nonsense. It is on a par with the silliness about two spaces after a period making monospace type more readable.

This phenomenon--making up a plausible-sounding explanation when we're unfamiliar with facts to the contrary--is a natural human characteristic. That's why there is folk etymology (plausible-sounding but false stories about the origins of words), why science is so hard for humans to get right, and why mentalists, magicians, and charlatans of all types find it so easy to make a living.



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Follow-Ups:

References:
RE: Usability: Serif and Sans-Serif font faces?: From: Solena . LEMOIGNE
Re: Usability: Serif and Sans-Serif font faces?: From: Bonnie Granat
Re: Usability: Serif and Sans-Serif font faces?: From: Dick Margulis
Re: Usability: Serif and Sans-Serif font faces?: From: Bonnie Granat

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