[Pydotorg-redesign] Draft HTML for redesign proposal

[Michael Geary]

> From: Tim Parkin
> Unfortunately most users (most windows and some linux) won't have
> a choice of using anti-alias.

Hmm... Just about all Windows users have the option of using anti-aliasing.
Of course, only Windows XP users will have ClearType available, but nearly
all new Windows machines come with XP.

> The argument about legibility of fonts can
> be confused as there are two types of reading. One if word reading,
> where the individual letter clarity is important, and for this verdana
> wins hands down. The other is sentence reading, where word shapes are
> more important as the brain doesn't process letter by letter. For this,
> in my opinion, arial wins as it's condensed face creates word shapes
> that are more in line with the typical narrative word shapes used in
> print etc.

Interesting. You really find Arial to be more readable than Verdana for body
text? For my eyes, Verdana wins at small type sizes whether it's
anti-aliased or not.

At larger type sizes--once the stems get to be two pixels thick--I don't
mind either one.

 Like Michael says, if we were to have very highresolution
> with excellent anti-aliasing, I would choose a serif font for body
> content. Unfortunately we have low resolution with no anti-alias being
> the default, majority view and for this, I feel arial wins due to it's
> familiar rendering of word shapes. This is also why you don't tend to
> see body content in 'Avant Garde' but you do see a lot in 'helvetica'
> where the screen versions of these are, loosely, 'verdana' and 'arial'
> respectivley (arial was ms's rendering of helvetica for screen and
> verdana was the same but optimised for ultra low resolution,
> non-antialiased.
>
> At the end of the day this probably says it all...
>
> http://usability.gov/guidelines/fonts.html

Ha! They *say* it doesn't matter, but they *use* Verdana!!! ;-)

(Well, they use Verdana for *most* of their body copy, but they mix in a bit
of Arial too--really a bad idea to switch back and forth like that.)

> http://www.acm.org/sigchi/chi95/proceedings/intpost/tst_bdy.htm

That's a very old paper that predates Verdana, anti-aliased text, and LCD
displays. I'd tend to take anything it says with a grain of salt.

> In summary..
>
> "Research shows no reliable differences in reading speed or user
> preferences between 10-point Times Roman, Georgia serif fonts,
> Helvetica, or Verdana sans serif font"
>
> Although contrast did produce some differences :-
>
> http://hubel.sfasu.edu/research/AHNCUR.html

OUCH! That paper really is painful to look at. Green on yellow? What were
they thinking?

> In this case it was noted that in no survey did black on white produce
> the best response times. This was typically produced at lower contrasts,
> although in these case the background was adjusted rather than the
> foreground. On my monitor here (22" Iiyama CRT) black on white makes my
> eyes water and I prefer a low contrast foreground. Perhaps I suffer from
> a dyslexia type disorder, but I find 80% contrast so much more readable
> than 100%. If it turns out I am the exception then I'll have to change
> it but if what I suffer at 100% contrast is repeated for a large
> percentage of the population then I'd be very reluctant to give in on
> this point.

Forgive a dumb question, but what kind of refresh rate are you running your
monitor at? I remember back in the day when all I had was a 60 Hz monitor, I
went to great lengths to turn down the contrast. I even recall patching the
Windows 1.x/2.x display drivers to force white backgrounds to be light gray.
But when I finally got up to a decent refresh rate, black on white started
looking fine. And it's always looked great on LCDs. (One observation
here--we just got in some new computers and monitors at Adobe, and I noticed
that just about everyone who got a new monitor chose an LCD.)

Naw, you're a designer (and a darn good one, despite our differences on type
style <g>), you wouldn't have a monitor with a bad refresh rate--would you?
:-)

Also, just out of curiosity, what resolution do you run the 22" monitor at?

Thanks!

-Mike