In light of yesterday's announcement of a type-shift at the US Department of State, I was curious what Jacob Nielsen's usability guidelines for serif and sans-serif fonts were. In particular, I suspect that Microsoft (and by proxy, State) are optimising for reading on mobile devices rather than desktop or paper, where a sans font is generally more readable than serif.
He'd addressed the issue in this 2012 NNGroup essay. Though the piece notes that with high-definition displays of 200 dpi and above reasons to avoid serif-based fonts are mooted, there's still no clear argument for them either.
Though one wonders why State doesn't fully embrace Teh New Hawtneſs and communicate directly through meme generators...
He'd addressed the issue in this 2012 NNGroup essay. Though the piece notes that with high-definition displays of 200 dpi and above reasons to avoid serif-based fonts are mooted, there's still no clear argument for them either.
Though one wonders why State doesn't fully embrace Teh New Hawtneſs and communicate directly through meme generators...
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