Agreed. Serif font is an established convention and recent usability guidelines are no longer making clearcut recommendations since modern screen can easily render fine lines.
It might be the combination of size and spacing, but I find pdf papers so hard to read as I age...
Agreed. Serif font is an established convention and recent usability guidelines are no longer making clearcut recommendations since modern screen can easily render fine lines.
It might be the combination of size and spacing, but I find pdf papers so hard to read as I age...
It's not just serif vs non, PDFs were designed to be printed on paper, so they specify the exact font and spacing used everywhere (and typically include the font itself). Screens are different than paper, and a font that looks good on paper may or may not be legible on your particular screen. (narrow strokes might align with screen pixels on one letter, and fall into a blank space on the next letter - that sort of thing.) Web pages are designed for screens, so they are more flexible, and the software that displays them knows the screen, and has fonts that are tuned to that particular screen. If you look at PDFs on really high end, design professional monitors, they look as good as web pages. Most of us don't have that luxury.
Serif fonts make reading significantly more difficult for people with low vision and those with certain cognitive disabilities. Multiple columns also cause problems, especially for people using screen magnifiers, who may not realize there is another column of text off to the right. So, unless we're only publishing for "abled" people, a single column of text using a sans serif font is more accessible. Oh - and the plain language used in this paper is also far more accessible. Kudos to Adam!
Agreed. Serif font is an established convention and recent usability guidelines are no longer making clearcut recommendations since modern screen can easily render fine lines.
It might be the combination of size and spacing, but I find pdf papers so hard to read as I age...
It's not just serif vs non, PDFs were designed to be printed on paper, so they specify the exact font and spacing used everywhere (and typically include the font itself). Screens are different than paper, and a font that looks good on paper may or may not be legible on your particular screen. (narrow strokes might align with screen pixels on one letter, and fall into a blank space on the next letter - that sort of thing.) Web pages are designed for screens, so they are more flexible, and the software that displays them knows the screen, and has fonts that are tuned to that particular screen. If you look at PDFs on really high end, design professional monitors, they look as good as web pages. Most of us don't have that luxury.
Serif fonts make reading significantly more difficult for people with low vision and those with certain cognitive disabilities. Multiple columns also cause problems, especially for people using screen magnifiers, who may not realize there is another column of text off to the right. So, unless we're only publishing for "abled" people, a single column of text using a sans serif font is more accessible. Oh - and the plain language used in this paper is also far more accessible. Kudos to Adam!