Verdana font. Why not?

[Ståle Sæbøe]

I am a bit curious about this.

The graphic design people I work with say it is their preferred font for
web pages. The reason being that it is "kinder" to the eye both in terms
of shape and size.

The HTML "hardcore elititst" profess that it is a useless font because
it is too big compared to other fonts.

Personally I do not care one way or the other, but I generally trust
graphic designers more than programmers and rules lawyers when it comes
to pure design.

It seems to me that the only argument against using Verdana is that a
large number of browsers do not support it and therefore it causes their
pages to render with a very small font.

Can anyone honestly say they do not have the Verdana font installed?

[SeaPlusPlus]

> On Fri, 18 Mar 2005, SeaPlusPlus wrote:

Verdana is NOT the problem...
Alan J. Flavell wrote:

Not in itself, no - the problem is the complete lack of any meaningful
font-size-adjust facility in CSS. Without that, Verdana is so very
atypical that you would do better to avoid it in a WWW context, no
matter what its attractions might be in a controlled situation.
Agreed, the problem is it can't exist in a world when it must compare
favorably with woefully inadaquate fonts. ;-)
the problem is this misuse. Petitio principii. If we can't agree what the problem is, how are we
ever going to agree what constitutes "misuse", riddle me that?
Sorry, know it's not the best argument... My font just doesn't suck
enough to exist in the WWW. ;-)
So the font is NOT way too big.

Oh yes it is, at a given nominal pt size. That's the whole point of
the problem. If you can't appreciate that, I'm not sure how we're
ever going to make progress.

Alan...

I agree totally with you... I'm just trying to make the point that
everyone here is casting aspersions on the font because it is too readable.

Is Verdana's line height the same as an equivalent point size
alternative font. I know x-height and width are larger... but... I'm of
the impression that line to line it's the same.

Thank you...

Rich

[SeaPlusPlus]

Alan J. Flavell wrote:

On Fri, 18 Mar 2005, SeaPlusPlus wrote:

If your do any testing it should NOT be on an analog display.

It you're to do any meaningful testing, it needs to be across the
spectrum of displays that your readers are using.

I should have said... when the results are available for digital display
tests then the analog tests can begin. In effect you will then be in a
poisition to investigate the effect of the analog skewing has on
electronic readers. But NO WAY you should set out in the fudged analog
world first... (unless you're a glutton for punishment).

Thank you...

Rich

[SeaPlusPlus]

>>>>Lauri Raittila wrote:

That says what I believe... there is nothing 'wrong' with Verdana...
What's wrong is when it is misused. 80% is a misuse...

Lauri Raittila wrote: As is Verdana with 100% size for body text. That is way too big,
especially too vide, and I get short lines. And it is especially bad if
there is no big enaugh linespacing.

Lauri... in comp.infosystem s.www.authoring.stylesheets, SeaPlusPlus wrote: Verdana is NOT the problem... the problem is this misuse. So the font is
NOT way too big. It is still the same point size is it not?
Lauri Raittila wrote:
Yes, but to actually make anything readable, you need to use bigger line
height, and you end up getting heigher lines... It has a
bigger x-height and it is certainly wider (which provides for more
readability ). So why do you insist on casting aspersions on the font?
the problem is the misuses. Because there is no way to use it well in WWW, while it was designed for
WWW, I see failure. They should have scaled it down, so that it would
look like TNR when set to similar size.
Yes, true WWW is not the place for it... I don't use it on my sites. But
there are places where it could be used menus or headings...

No, you should not have expected them to look to TNR forcomparison.. .
that's comparing sans-serif to serif. They did that with Georgia
development. Verdana, they should have looked to other sans-serif fonts
for comparison.
Well, you keep harping on the fact that low resolution screens make it
difficult to 'resolve' delicate character subtleties. No shit,
Sherlock... so what the user needs to do is to accomodate their lousy
screen with a forgiving font. That, madam, is not my job to provide
crumby fonts to the rest of the world because the user has a lousy
screen resolution. Well, you keep forgetting, that users can't do that, unless you help
them, or else they have to forgot all fonts you specify.
Then that's what they'll need to do... If their display is that bad...
Again, this has do to with the vertical line spacing of the fonts.
Georgia was designed with those restrictions in mind and therefore is a
good, no not just good, it a great choice for body text (or as I like to
call it... prose).

Well, I don't use it myself, I prefer TNR with bigger size. Why? Because
it is faster and easier to read.

In the seventies all we had were poor resolution screens with monospace
fonts; I be **& &^^%^&* if I'm going to saddle my readers with that crap
on the odd chance that someone would like to view my site on museum
quality equipment. ;-)

So, you assume everyone has big resolution?

No I assume if their equipment is poor then they have over-ridden with
some reasonable choices.

As an aside... I remember how we thought we were in heaven when we
upgraded so our display screens actually could display LOWER CASE! ;-)

The problem you donät seem to see is that there is about 30% of people
still using 800*600, and most likely on 15". (w3schools)

My web sites will be fine for them...

Thank you...

Rich

[Ståle Sæbøe]

Stan Brown wrote:

"Alan J. Flavell" wrote in
comp.infosystem s.www.authoring.stylesheets:

have you considered the possibility that the reader knows better
what's readable on their own display than the average web author could
ever do?

Ssssss! Infidel!

:-)

lol! :)

[Ståle Sæbøe]

Stan Brown wrote:

"Ståle Sæbøe" wrote in comp.infosystem s.www.authoring.stylesheets:

The thread as a whole was becoming difficult to follow and some
arguments were repeated across the board, being beaten to death with a
stick.

In the hope (apparently vain) of finding the formulation of words
to help you understand the issue.

Well, being the one who actually set the issue, you should ask me for an
explaination instead of trying to tell me what I meant :)

[Martin Bialasinski]

SeaPlusPlus <Se*********@ho tmail.com> wrote:

Times is a GREAT font for the printed word.

If you constrain printed words to newspaper column widths, you are
right. This is what the font was designed for.
Bye,
Martin

[Martin Bialasinski]

SeaPlusPlus <Se*********@ho tmail.com> wrote:

No they MUST be nothing of the sort. Indicating visited links is
just a gimmick and on a well constructed site are totally
unneccesary.
If I have a list of 20 article headlines, linked to the respective
articles, I consider it a very useful feature to be able to recognise
at a glimse the articles I have take a look at already.
If you have a convoluted web site that makes it a web and no
hierarchy[...]

Blaming to web to be web-like is, let's say, interesting.

Bye,
Martin

[John C. Ring, Jr.]

In article <wa************ ********@comcas t.com>, SeaPlusPlus <Se*********@ho tmail.com> wrote:

Lauri Raittila wrote:

These are actually almost same test 3 times. All having very limited use
in WWW terms, as they don't really tell us much. All repeatable in lab,
but what about hoe/office?

[...]

This whole area, surely, must have been investigated more thoroughly. I
think it may have been done many times and the companies have kept their
findings for internal use only... ;-)

Hence my hope that perhaps someone out there had references to other such
studies they could share :) I agree that the ones I posted aren't perfect.
For example, their sample is hardly representative of the general population,
or even the current web population.

However, as that may be, they are about the only ones I have found online
which used test subjects to see what effects some different font selections
have.

But at least a number of posters in this thread have given their reasons for
some of there viewpoints, which is better then the folks who state what
fonts are good selections, and which are bad selections, but with no rational
as to why they believe that is so.

[SeaPlusPlus]

> SeaPlusPlus <Se*********@ho tmail.com> wrote:

Times is a GREAT font for the printed word.

Martin Bialasinski wrote:
If you constrain printed words to newspaper column widths, you are
right. This is what the font was designed for.

That's right, I mostly wanted to draw attention to the fact that on
disply screens it is not good at all... (that was NOT what it was
designed for). So, when people talk about what looks good on display and
mention TNR they are not making fair comparisons.

Thank you...

Rich

[SeaPlusPlus]

> SeaPlusPlus <Se*********@ho tmail.com> wrote:

No they MUST be nothing of the sort. Indicating visited links is
just a gimmick and on a well constructed site are totally
unneccesary .
Martin Bialasinski wrote:

If I have a list of 20 article headlines, linked to the respective
articles, I consider it a very useful feature to be able to recognise
at a glimse the articles I have take a look at already.
Okay, you are right, in this case it is helpful... but still not
neccesary. ;-)
If you have a convoluted web site that makes it a web and no
hierarchy[...]

Blaming to web to be web-like is, let's say, interesting.

Heh heh, nope I wasn't saying the web was 'web like' I was saying when
a web site design be 'web like' (cross-linked all over the place) that
you need to reconsider...