Usability News - 4.1 2002 -- A Comparison of Popular Online Fonts: Which Size and Type is Best?
CONCLUSION
Several
observations can be made regarding the examined font types. First, no
significant differences in reading efficiency were detected between the
font types at any size. There were, however, significant differences in
reading time. Generally, Times and
Arial were read faster than Courier, Schoolbook, and
Georgia. Fonts at the 12-point size were read faster than fonts at the
10-point size. In addition, a font type x size interaction
was found for the perception of font legibility. In
general, however, Arial, Courier, and Georgia were perceived as the
most legible.
For
font attractiveness, Georgia was perceived as being
more attractive than Arial, Courier, and Comic, while Times was perceived as more attractive than Courier. This contrasts
with participants' general preference for a particular font type. Overall, Verdana
was the most preferred font, while Times was the least preferred. Thus it
seems that the Georgia and Times serif fonts are considered more
attractive, but they are generally less preferred. Of the fonts studied,
Verdana appears to be the best overall font choice. Besides being the most
preferred, it was read fairly quickly and was perceived as being
legible.
As
with all studies that examine reading performance, caution should be
made in generalizing these outcomes to other font types. Many factors
should be taken into account, such as individual text characteristics,
the text size, the line and character spacing, the computer settings,
as well as the user characteristics.
Note: A discussion of our font
studies, as well as other studies related to online text can be found at http://www.optimalweb.org
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