Comment by okamiueru
3 years ago
I never understand why someone in charge of making one specific simple choice, ends up making a remarkable dumb decision. Why, unless you are doing things unethically, would you go for a licensed font?
It's not like this is a hard problem to solve more than adequately with open and more accessible alternatives.
Aside from licensing, usability studies show that serif fonts are more legible than sans serif fonts, so I have no idea where they came up with the idea that somehow they're harder to read for people with disabilities when all prior research I'm aware of has shown the opposite.
Yes! This a thousand times. Many universities I know now discourage sans-serif fonts for screen reasons and prefer Arial because one study showed a slight preference for those who were dyslexic. The evidence is far from strong [1] and frankly I feel like doing a meta-analysis of it in my spare time. I really, really, really dislike Arial and find it harder to read than others.
[1] https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=dyslexia%20arial%20font...
I'm puzzled why sans-serif fonts would be discouraged for screen reasons. My understanding is that serif fonts are more visibly degraded than sans-serif fonts on low-resolution displays.
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I don't believe that is true anymore, I've seen studies that show that there is little difference between the two.
It should be noted that older studies are all about paper and signs, while newer ones tend to focus on screens. There are some important differences between the two esp. when it comes to low-DPI screens (which are sadly still typical for office desktops).
I vaguely remember something about there being a difference on printed paper vs screens when it comes to serifs. But also, aren't most aircraft controls labeled in something like Futura? I believe the Apollo program and other aerospace studies decided that was the most legible.
Lower-dpi screens, including the traditional ~96 dpi of classic monitors, makes serif-fonts less clear.
High-definition screens (such as the iMac retina display I'm looking at presently) and many e-ink devices hit 200+ dpi (200--300 is not uncommon for e-ink), which is the starting point for many laserprinters, though those can go to 600--1200 dpi. Monchrome vs. colour will show some distinction in clarity (monochrome effectively has about 3x greater resolution in displays given three-colour picture elements (pels).
My own experience is that I much prefer serif to sans-serif fonts for any substantial reading, though labels and titles may read better in a sans font.
State's decision here seems quite flawed.
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Reading a control label is very different from reading a paper or onscreen memo.
Apparently the serifs don't work as well on OCR and screen readers.
https://twitter.com/John_Hudson/status/1615486871571935232
Why would you build a screen reader without targeting the most common font of the last thirty years? That's like making a license plate reader that has trouble with white license plates.
I thought the same thing. Surely it must be a function of the prevalence of these fonts though. In a hypothetical world where 90% of text you read is in sans serif I'd have to imagine that this would tilt the readability study results in sans serif's favor. I wonder if the studies attempt to control for this somehow?
Logistics probably. With out a doubt you know this font is deployed on most systems around the world. It’s maintained by one of the largest companies in the world. And its provenance can be assured.
Now I want to make a custom Times New Roman font with unpredictable ligatures and 0-width vector data so poorly monitored systems create false data when printed in hardcopy.
I’m reminded of the humorous screenshot quoting “Times New Bastard”
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https://www.1001fonts.com/toms-new-roman-font.html
It's the default font in MS Office. If the State Department uses Office (and they almost certainly do), then it's an obvious choice.
Yeah, I was wondering if they finally upgraded computers with Win XP and Office 2003 (with default font Times New Roman) to Win 10/11 and Office 2021/Office 365 (with default font Calibri).
Do you think Anthony Blinken knows what a licensed or unlicensed font is?
Do you think that Anthony Blinken came up with the idea of using Calibri?
I mean, that's not implausible. This sounds like exactly what would happen if one person had a specific font preference and happened to be in charge.
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I would hope someone who don't know the context or effect of a choice they are making, at the least consults with someone who does? This isn't rocket science to get right.
Font licensing is an incredibly niche thing to be aware of. I'm highly confident the people involved in this decision simply saw that Calibri was the default font in Microsoft Office and didn't think twice about the availability of it. Perhaps someone farther down the chain of command raised a concern about licensing, but I doubt such a concern would make its way back up the chain. It seems like something only lower level employees, graphic artists, or even IT administrators would be aware of.
Anecdotally, the most pressing concern I made to management during my career only ever made its way up two levels in the corporate ladder, not including my manager. I have a feeling the State Department is even more rigid with communication flow.
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This is such a weird HN-style take. I would bet money the start of this selection was "give me a list of the fonts on all our computers right now" and then they picked one. Probably Calibri after seeing it as the default in some other application.
Nobody at the State Department is diving into the intricacies of font licensure.
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I happen to know this because it was a recent crossword puzzle answer, but it's Antony (no "h").
Your average person doing office work already has access to the font. There’s nothing dumb about reading the room
The federal government is Microsoft Word all the way down. The relevant people have no idea what you’re talking about.
Some of us federal scientists use LaTeX! Have to use Word for internal documents (like proposals) that go to management though…
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