ken@csis.dit.csiro.au (Ken Yap) (03/29/91)
>Studies have shown that in the US serif faces are "easier" to read. However, >over recent decades the balance has been moving away from a serif preference >toward neutrality. In some European countries, notably scandanavia, there is >NO difference in comprehension or speed between the two styles, and even >a benefit to sans serif has been reported. The conclusion is inescapable: >this is a culturally-based characteristic. I'd be interested in any references you have. Not that I really want to start the old debate again, but because I recently found a pro Serif reference, without which, many people have been handwaving. I would like to collect references to published studies pro and con. Here it is: The concept that ``the simpler the form of a letter the simpler its reading'' was an obsession of beginning constructivism. It became something like a dogma, and is still followed by ``modernistic'' typographers \ldots Opthalmology has disclosed that the more the letters are differentiated from each other, the easier is the reading. Without going into comparisons and details, it should be realised that words consisting of only capital letters present the most difficult reading---because of their equal height, equal volume, and, with most, their equal width. When comparing serif letters with san-serif, the latter provide an uneasy reading. The fashionable preference for san-serif in text shows neither historical nor practical competence. Josef Albers, Interaction of Color (New Haven 1963, revised edition 1975), p. 4. Quoted in The Visual Display of Quantitative Information by Edward Tufte. PS: My personal experience agrees with Albers.