> From: steve harley >> on 2011-09-15 20:38 Stan Halpin wrote >>> Ann, I was a bit surprised by Mark's earlier comment that this attitude is >>> more opinion than scientifically derived Truth, or words to that effect. I >>> coulda' sworn that I had read a couple of articles on the topic in Human >>> Factors or IEEE-SMC a few decades ago. I did a quick search, starting and >>> ending with Wikipedia, and found that the apparent consensus is that there >>> is no solid evidence one way or the other. >> perhaps you missed the link i sent earlier -- thorough review of the >> research, >> concluding that no conclusion can be drawn >> >> <http://alexpoole.info/which-are-more-legible-serif-or-sans-serif-typefaces>
> > On Sep 16, 2011, at 12:02 PM, John Sessoms wrote: > > Interesting article. > > The whole debate has a flaw from my point of view; the unproven assumption > that one is better than all of the others for EVERYONE. > John - the only Truth in research on human behavior is "It Depends." No serious social/behavioral science researcher even pretends to be looking for what is the right answer for everyone. The line of questioning is rather something like: a. Is there a difference? b. what is there about the persons and/or the situation that may cause such a difference (in attitude, performance, whatever.) c. Can we formulate some hypotheses, nascent theories which predict the phenomena? In this case it seems that there hasn't been enough work to get beyond (a) or (b), but there is also no indication that this is any big deal. So a first-cut good enough answer is to go with serif fonts on paper and sans-serif on screen. Take into account possible distinctions among audiences. Then have a small group of people from your target audience look at your design proposal and let you know if they think it works. If an audience member doesn't like it, then they can change it. On-screen they can manipulate the underlying CSS files to match the screen to their preferences. On paper, they can switch to an e-book reader and, again, switch font size and style to suit. I don't mean to sound pedantic, but I am at that point in the semester where students are starting to ask "what is the answer?" And I keep saying over and over, "It Depends." stan -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List [email protected] http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
