Typefaces that work well with aged eyes.

[Solly]

My vision continues to degrade but surgical repair is not planned for any time soon. I, as Paul, need large letters, but other factors play in the ease of readability as well. On a page of a typography text with five samples, my old eyes react differently than my younger eyes to that same page about fifteen years ago. In fact, a typeface I really did not care that much for in the past appears now to be the most useful. As I go through my MacBook typeface families, I see far fewer than on my other operating systems, and only a handful on my iOS devices. I am willing to purchase good quality typefaces to permit more comfortable reading.

 

My main device has a 13" retina display. Currently I am using Big Caslon 16pt with 20% line spacing. A year ago, it was the best choice I had for rapid word recognition; it is taking more effort now.

 

What typeface and size do you prefer for reading on a computer screen with English texts and tools? When projecting for class viewing what choices do you make?

 

Thanks for sharing,

 

Joseph

 

[JohnABarnett]

Bet you end up with a lot of people tuning into this thread, Solly! Including me!

[ukfraser]

I use verdana 36 pt bold for projecting and try to limit it to 5 rows per slide.

 

There is an argument that a serif type font is best for reading and this ancient wisdom is questioned these days. I like gill sans but tend to use the default times Roman but I would go for something where the n height is big with smaller asenders (like the bit above it on an h).

 

;o)

[Solly]

Fraser, in another thread you mentioned that you liked the Gill Sans as used in the BCP, if I remember correctly. Have you tried it on your digital devices? I have not used sans serif fonts for text, but it may be worth an experiment since I currently have it. Gill Sans is so quintessential British!  

 

;o)

[ukfraser]

Here are some screenshots from the truly excellent times and seasons on my iPad digital device but look better in real life.

 

Ps it’s common worship (published in 2000 rather than bcp, but I know what you mean as the 1928 revision of bcp is included in common worship as the ‘traditional’).

 

Edited March 26, 2018 by ukfraser

[Michel Gilbert]

Hi Solly,

Without knowing much about fonts, for years I found myself preferring Times New Roman for print and Ariel for computer screens. Then I read somewhere that a serif font is better for paper, and a sans-serif font is better for computer/lit screens. So I guess I agree with the conventional wisdom.

I hope you find what you're looking for. I've requested accessibility options for Accordance, like the ability to increase font sizes on the menus, etc. Having a choice of font would be great also. For example, Scrivener does this, and I prefer sans-serif fonts for its menus.

Regards,

Michel

 

Edit: sans-serif
 

Edited March 26, 2018 by Michel Gilbert

[Solly]

Ps it’s common worship (published in 2000 rather than bcp, but I know what you mean as the 1928 revision of bcp is included in common worship as the ‘traditional’).

 

 

Oh my, not only vision but my memory as well! Actually the Common Worship materials appear much more readable than what I see on this side of the pond as I visit Episcopal parishes where the 1979 BCP is common. Your screen shots show lovely layout and type! I will be on the lookout for the Common Worship materials over here!

 

[Solly]

Michel, I will experiment with sans serif typefaces. There are quite a few choices to choose among on the Mac systems. ;-)

 

—Joseph

[Graham Buck]

There's an organization, American Printing House for the Blind, that offers a couple of things. 1) A font of their own that is, 2) designed according to these principles:

 

Features

• More even spacing between letters.
• Higher crossbars.
• No serifs.
• Wider letters.
• Heavier letters.
• Underslung "j" and "q".
• Letters more open.
• Larger punctuation marks.

 

You can find their font HERE. Or experiment with fonts you already have that might contain the features mentioned above.

Edited March 26, 2018 by Graham Buck

[Michael Hunt]

Solly,

 

I found these tips for making print more readable helpful:

 

http://www.afb.org/info/reading-and-writing/making-print-more-readable/35

https://www.teachingvisuallyimpaired.com/font-legibility.html

 

They also include a link to APHont developed specifically for low vision readers.

 

I use a mix of Helvetica Neue, Avenir Next and Source Sans Pro (a free font from Adobe) as well as Accordance's reading mode.

 

One feature I would like to see is more control over the Readability theme or better yet the ability to define our own custom theme for the reading mode.

 

Like yourself, I require a larger font and different leading in order to read a text comfortably for longer periods of time.

 

P.S. I use Gill Sans a lot in my service sheets

Edited March 27, 2018 by Michael Hunt

[Solly]

Thank you Graham and Michael for the information you supplied. These are good ideas to work on—the APH site is a very useful resource; one I did not know about.

 

—Joseph

[Daniel Francis]

I like hoefler on my iPad and Accordance it is a serif font but I like them too much to do elsewise I go san serif and it just feels too dead to me. If that mKes any sense.

 

[ukfraser]

Your screen shots show lovely layout and type! I will be on the lookout for the Common Worship materials over here!

 

They are available on line here

 

https://www.churchofengland.org/prayer-and-worship/worship-texts-and-resources

 

I was able to download them all as pdfs but the site seems to have been updated since

;o(

 

But there really isn’t a substitute for the feel and smell of the leather bound volume. (Unless you are a vegan.)

 

https://www.chpublishing.co.uk/books/9780715120163/common-worship-main-volume-calfskin-leather-tan

 

;o)

Edited March 27, 2018 by ukfraser

[Battlesman]

I've had problems too, so I use Iowan Old Style (which comes default on Mac) and it's worked well for me.

[Alistair]

Check out https://www.dyslexic.com/fonts/or search for "dyslexia fonts" etc with your internet search engine of choice

 

I have some PDFs about dyslexia-friendly fonts but I don't know where they came from, maybe you can find them or PM me for copies.

 

One is called good_fonts_for_dyslexia_study.pdf. It's very technical.

 

Another is Dyslexia_Style_Guide.pdf from the British Dyslexia Foundation

 

ReadRegular-ENG.pdf is about a typeface called ReadRegular, which is mentioned on the www.dyslexic.com/fonts page. See http://www.readregular.com/english/regular.html

 

Advice seems to tend towards sans-serif, which I find odd, but that's to help with dyslexia.

 

HTH

Edited March 28, 2018 by Alistair

[A.D. Riddle]

ReadRegular looks similar to Andika.

"Andika is a sans serif, Unicode-compliant font designed especially for literacy use. Andika's design takes into account the needs of beginning readers. The focus is on clear, easy-to-perceive letterforms that will not be readily confused with one another."

https://software.sil.org/andika/

 

A.D.

[Solly]

Thank you Dustin, I will look at Iowan Old Style. 

 

Alistair, your information may be part of the solution I need, since I find myself having more and more "misreads", where I think what I just read makes no sense and I reread and find I had really scrambled things a bit.

 

A.D., thanks. Another one to check. The resources today are really improved compared to  what we had it the late 1990's when such issues in our classrooms began to be addressed with technology assistance.

 

This is turning out to be much more involved than I first imagined! ;-)

 

—Joseph

Edited March 28, 2018 by Solly

[Michel Gilbert]

Great question Solly. I hope members continue to chime in.

 

FWIW, I've heard that serif vs sans-serif preference has to do with the way light reflects off a printed page vs a lit screen. They say that less light is reflected off a printed page, and serif fonts compensate by sending more graphic signals to the brain, which helps to bind words together. On the other hand, a lot of light reflects off a computer screen, tablet, etc., so you see more and eventually become overwhelmed by serif fonts.

 

I'm not sure if this is true. But, I know that when I see a very fancy Hebrew serif font, I can stand it in print, but not on my computer screen. As I get older, I also find myself preferring sans-serif fonts on my tablet, not just in the case of very fancy fonts, but even TNR vs Arial, or some other sans-serif font. I even started posting in Arial vs TNR a while ago.

 

I don't recall where I heard about the light hypothesis, but I think its subject matter was reading large amounts of texts. So, it would not necessarily influence font preferences for short amounts of reading, either print or digital. I know this is all a bit vague, but I thought it was worth mentioning. At least I found it interesting, and I still find it interesting in the context of early Jewish book typeface vs digital Hebrew fonts.

 

Regards,

 

Michel

[Solly]

 

I don't recall where I heard about the light hypothesis, but I think its subject matter was reading large amounts of texts. So, it would not necessarily influence font preferences for short amounts of reading, either print or digital. I know this is all a bit vague, but I thought it was worth mentioning. At least I found it interesting, and I still find it interesting in the context of early Jewish book typeface vs digital Hebrew fonts.

 

 

 

Michel, reflected light versus emitted light is such an important aspect of the visual arts. It would not surprise me if there is a difference in the way the eye and brain process text reflected vs. text projected. It is time to prowl the literature on this idea.

 

Thanks,

--Joseph

[ukfraser]

It’s not what solly asked but my wife started printing handouts for her group on yellow paper which is better for people with certain conditions, dyslexia I seem to think.

 

Lots of research going on still but lots still conflicting. Butthink of the rate of change we are living through as screen resolution increases.

 

Try things out, experimenting can’t break anything thanks to the undo button (or remember what you are doing).

 

;o)

[Λύχνις Δαν]

I have always preferred a slightly off-white paper in books. The print edition of BDF (grammar) springs to mind.

 

thx

D

[Solly]

Yes, I have found a soft background color to be helpful on several counts, and use this in my Accordance tools and texts. 

 

I have started to prowl academic papers and quickly found a paper from the late 1990's evaluating reading rate and reading comprehension using typefaces ported from print to digital (Times and Ariel) vs. typefaces designed specifically for digital display (Georgia and Verdana). The results surprised me, but this is a start and I am sure I will find more recent research using more current display technology and a greater number of typeface samples. The paper gives useful background material and reference to studies through the middle 1990's. For me, it was a fun read.

 

The paper is A STUDY OF THE READABILITY OF ON-SCREEN TEXT By Eric Michael Weisenmiller, Dissertation submitted to the faculty of the Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University:

https://vtechworks.lib.vt.edu/bitstream/handle/10919/29400/WeisenmillerDissertation.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y

 

Don't worry, the results and conclusions are easy to find. ;-)

 

Happy reading,

Joseph

[Alistair]

Yes, I have found a soft background color to be helpful on several counts, and use this in my Accordance tools and texts. 

 

I have started to prowl academic papers and quickly found a paper from the late 1990's evaluating reading rate and reading comprehension using typefaces ported from print to digital (Times and Ariel) vs. typefaces designed specifically for digital display (Georgia and Verdana). The results surprised me, but this is a start and I am sure I will find more recent research using more current display technology and a greater number of typeface samples. The paper gives useful background material and reference to studies through the middle 1990's. For me, it was a fun read.

 

The paper is A STUDY OF THE READABILITY OF ON-SCREEN TEXT By Eric Michael Weisenmiller, Dissertation submitted to the faculty of the Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University:

https://vtechworks.lib.vt.edu/bitstream/handle/10919/29400/WeisenmillerDissertation.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y

 

Don't worry, the results and conclusions are easy to find. ;-)

 

Happy reading,

Joseph

I had a quick glance at that paper, but I wonder if a significant factor is the familiarity one has with a particular typeface (Times in this case)?

[Solly]

Alistair, multiple studies of this type do not address the subject's familiarity with the typeface. To me, that issue should be dealt with. A more recent study, with better digital display devices, emphasizes how the designed for print typefaces and designed for digital display typefaces are converging on reading speed and retention, though the subjects may subjectively prefer those designed for digital display. I am thinking Georgia and Verdana are now becoming very familiar with web users and a new familiarity bias may be setting in. The more recent paper is: "Reading on the Computer Screen: Does Font Type has Effects on Web Text Readability?"

https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ1067757.pdf

 

However this study on typeface and recall makes me think I should read everything in fraktur! 

https://hbr.org/2012/03/hard-to-read-fonts-promote-better-recall

 

It has been an interesting day and my thought at this point is to take Fraser's advice and just experiment with the settings and find something pleasing.  Looking at printed samples in a typography text, I was surprised at how clean and pleasant Baskerville looked. This is a font I have avoided in the past, and transitional typefaces in general--I really do prefer old style typefaces. 

 

It has been a fun day of research,

—Joseph

[Alistair]

If you settle on Baskerville, note that the Greek Font Society offers a Baskerville as well. You couldn't use it within Accordance (at least, not at the moment) but in theory you should have English and Greek in the same/similar typeface. (NBI haven't actually checked how similar they really are)