- I see this decision has been opposed also elsewhere.[1]. --Eleassar my talk 11:49, 29 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]
- I agree that sans is more usual for headings and seriffed for text. This is Wikipedia, mind you, where things like that aren't usually taken into consideration in 'improvements'. I'm thankful that they seem to have left the easy to read and clear Monobook alone. (I detest Vector...) Peridon (talk) 12:26, 29 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]
- Just an observation: I've written the sample text (on Massimo Vitelli) in Microsoft Office Word 2007 default layout, i.e. title in Cambria 26pt, subtitle in Cambria 12pt steel blue italics, body text in Calibri 11pt with 1.15 lines line spacing and 10 pt space after each paragraph. The similarity to the new typography is rather close (except for the subtitle).--Nø (talk) 12:42, 29 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]
- Sans-serif type is the norm on screens, hence the body text. The use of seriffed type on headers seems to be focused on contrast (from the rest of the content) and evoking a feeling of what the content ought to be (authoritative, encyclopedic, neutral). The design makes sense, but I also understand your misgivings. {{Nihiltres|talk|edits}} 18:16, 29 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]
- @Eleassar and Peridon: Nihiltres is correct in his interpretation here. This and most of the other design choices are brought up in the FAQ about the update. Steven Walling (WMF) • talk 00:11, 31 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]
The solution that has been suggested so far will lead to worsening readability. According to Tschichold we use sans-serif fonts in headings and serif fonts in the main text, not the other way round. If it will be introduced as is, you should please include a switch to turn it off in preferences. Otherwise you will suffer the same setback as with the visual-editor disaster. I won't use this stylesheet.--Aschmidt (talk) 14:24, 29 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Hm.
- While serif is traditionally measured as "more readable" I do wonder if the same is true of screen based text, and modern readers who see so much more sans. What is the latest research on this?
- Excellent news about avoiding smaller fonts - we should have a standard font size "smallest comfortable reading size" and never go below that. This is an accessibility issue that affects probably 30%+ of our readership.
- I would welcome a sans typeface that distinguishes between capital I and lowercase l.
- Mixing sans and serif is something I thought went out after the first few years of computer font-craziness - the 1980s for most of us.
- I wonder where the community consensus for this is: I have been out of touch recently so it may well be there, but I see no links to it. (Though I have looked at the discussion here - I see no consensus, just feedback, mainly the same issues that are brought up here.) From the other comments it does seem that this is something that would have benefited form community input - and this is about the fourth or fifth time that we have had this sort of issue.
All the best, Rich Farmbrough, 15:21, 29 March 2014 (UTC).[reply]
- Rich, it appears that text typeset with sans-serif fonts is no longer harder to read than text in serif fonts because sans-serif typefaces have been developed further, and we are now more used to them. Also, sans-serifs are easier to read on-screen than serifs are. But the combination of serifs in headings and sans-serifs for the main body text is quite unusual and it is just a sign of bad taste. As to the capital I and the lowercase l, I can see quite a difference in Safari on my Mac—the capital I is a bit thicker than the l. I suggest to consult a typographer for advice, e.g., Erik Spiekermann.--Aschmidt (talk) 23:38, 29 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]
- Hi Rich. A few thoughts on the points you bring up...
- re: "While serif is traditionally measured as "more readable" I do wonder if the same is true of screen based text, and modern readers who see so much more sans. What is the latest research on this?" This is a really complex issue, but our current understanding is that sans-serif tends to be rated as more readable on screens. This is why we retained use of sans for body content.
- On "a sans typeface that distinguishes between capital I and lowercase l." Someone else brought this up on the mediawiki.org talk page as well. The truth is, there is basically no sans-serif that does this really well and is available across major operating systems/browsers. Monospace and serif fonts tend to do this better, but neither are ideal for very large, dense blocks of text like the encyclopedia.
- On mixing sans/serif: this is still pretty common, but ultimately is a choice the designers wanted to test and which we're implementing now because of the unique nature of Wikipedia pages. Our most popular articles, talk pages, policy, help, and more all tend to have in common the fact that they are long pages and have many sections. Providing contrast and visual breaks for major headers (h1, h2) aids readers in scanning pages for the information they're looking for. So while it's still fairly common to mix two different font families on a single UI, we're less about following trends here and more about solving a specific design problem.
- On community consensus: it's easy to forget that the vast majority of people who will be impacted by this change are readers. These people do no typically get a say in editor-centric consensus processes, and ultimately we've never made these kinds of decisions based on consensus. The Vector launch followed a pretty similar pattern to this, meaning we beta tested as widely as possible -- in this case, with all mobile readers/editors as well as 10,000+ logged in users on desktop via Beta Features. After feedback from both editors and readers, we're confident these small tweaks to our typography are solving some of our core problems with text legibility, non-Latin script support, and more. Since individual editors and communities can still tweak this as needed with site CSS and personal CSS, we're not locked in to one experience for everyone regardless of personal preference or edge cases.
- Thanks for the detailed comments/questions, as usual. :) Steven Walling (WMF) • talk 00:24, 31 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]
- StevenYou are welcome.
- The mix of serif and san-serif might be something we get used to, like having the strap line on the logo in a serif typeface (perhaps we could match that to the H2 typeface at least) - but the blocky level 3 headings are really clunky lets look at all of them:
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