Hacker News Reader

Comment by hayksaakian | Hacker News Reader

serif fonts (meaning those with curly endings) feel like an attack on my eyes when I read them on an electronic screen

on print they're nice, but on displays they hurt more than they help me.

does anyone else feel the same way?

I think it can feel like an abrupt change compared to browsing the rest of the web, but I think if you spend some time with it, you'll fine that it feels more readable with a larger body of content.

Also, it is great when the line length is appropriate (which it is in this example). It just reads better.

Depending your screen, you may find that the contrast is jarring. Try setting the font to be slightly lighter. Maybe try #5A5A57 instead of #111 on that example.

There are also some serif typefaces that have less intricate details. If you look at the font on my site here. It's a serif font, but not as intense to look at as the one in the exapmle. http://andyfleming.com/why-does-mobile-have-to-win/ Or, similarly with the font on https://medium.com .

I'v always been the counter-example for all this. I liked serif fonts even when it was Times New Roman, un-antialiased on a 14 inch CRT.

By that I mean that I like reading with it, I tend to be more "impressed" with sans-serif layouts.

Have you tried a high resolution screen, like retina displays from Apple? It is virtually indistinguishable from print.

I used to feel the same way, but that changed when I got a higher resolution display. Now (for me) it's pretty much the same as on paper. I prefer serif for long texts so much that I override the default sans fonts on some news sites I visit with serif fonts.

For the record, the submitted CSS has a "sans" class, which uses Gill Sans instead (its on the page).

Agreed, subject to caveats. I don't like the typography in this project. Fonts for display on screens are generally simpler than ones in print, which works better with the lower available resolution. I don't dislike serif fonts per se, but I do think the fonts chosen in this project are overly complex for the medium.

It's a matter of being attuned to the needs of your audience. These days retina screens are the rule rather than the exception for some user populations. The difference in resolution between print and screens has already gone away for a lot of people.

That was true back in the time of 72dpi and 96dpi screens, no question, but do you think it remains true now?

I don't have figures for deployed laptops, but google collects data, and https://developer.android.com/about/dashboards/ says 80% of android phones have a display resolution above 240dpi. AIUI few printed publications use resolutions as high as 240dpi.

Well, 1366768 on 15" dislay is 100 PPI. Lot of consumer class laptop have displays like that. Hell, even Lenovo T450 or T550 have 1600900 14" (127 PPI) or 1920*1080 15" (140 PPI) displays, and those are expensive, professional machines.

Generally displays in laptops are terrible, unless you go with ultrabook or Apple.

This is a personal pet peeve but too many sans-serif fonts make it too hard to distinguish between "I" and "l." And even though it is easy to figure out from the context (and the font used here does distinguish so good for HN!) that is reason enough for me to prefer serif fonts in most cases.

I feel the other way around: I prefer serif fonts in general, however well designed websites should not have any issue with the font style chosen, as long as the basics of design and human vision are respected; e.g. contrast ratio, size, line heights etc.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com