Comment by willturman
12 hours ago
I recently discovered Practical Typography [1] and Typography for Lawyers [2] by Matthew Butterick which have changed the way I've approached presenting information. I would highly recommend each for anyone who uses text to communicate. Butterick is a Tufte for text.
Butterick introduced me to Bitstream Charter for which I'm very greatful. However, I would very strongly urge people to disregard his recommendations for representing hyperlinks.
Instead of just underlining hyperlinks, he has this demented nonsense:
> Cross-references, denoted with small caps, are clickable.
> Links to outside material are denoted with a red circle, like so.
Hyperlinks are almost universally distinguished by underlining them. There is no rational reason to invent a new design language and expect people to learn it. And for what benefit? The seemingly random capitalisation of words and weird circles in the middle of the text makes it much more jarring than simple underlining.
Smallcaps hyperlinks is even worse than it might initially sound: many ESL speakers have difficulty with text written in all-caps, and it totally makes sense why, if you think about it.
...why? I'm thinking about it and don't have the slightest idea. And it's not a difficulty I ever came across with my students when I taught ESL.
2 replies →
It is kinda funny you recommend those books as a reaction to the linked book.
> Nowadays, we expect such matters to be determined by empirical evidence, not by majority opinion. This book is concerned with the empirical evidence concerning the relative legibility of serif typefaces and sans serif typefaces
Meanwhile Buttericks books are very much "some guys opinion". Granted, that guy has a big passion, but at the end of the day, his books are not grounded in empirical evidence.