Summary of section one
It turns out that it is not terribly difficult to pick fonts that are accessible and easy to read, once you have some knowledge of the possible pitfalls and how to get around them. Even if you restrict yourself to using style sheets and specifying Verdana, Arial, (sans-serif), Georgia, or Times New Roman (serif fonts) you won't go far wrong. However, it is useful to know why these are good choices and what you can do to realise extra accessibility, usability and readability gains for visitors to your site. The following list is summaries what we have learned so far,
- Ensure that you don't do anything that stops users from replacing your chosen font with their own 'more accessible' one (in other words avoid the use of the <FONT> tag).
- Use style sheets rather than the <FONT> tag to set font preferences.
- Pick a font that you can be sure will be available on most operating systems, or provide alternatives in your font declaration including a generic font type.
- Choose a font appropriate to the message of your website.
- Use typefaces specifically designed for screen use.
- Attend to the usability and readability issues of the text on your pages including - as discussed - choosing a readable font.
For the majority of your potential audience, many of whom will not be changing their browser preferences, paying attention to: line length; leading (line height); font size; primary font choice; and the balance between white space and text; will have an impact on how accessible your content is.
The importance of concentrating on readabiltiy is heightened on the web by the twin factors of attention span and speed of reading and comprehenstion (10 - 20% slower on the web than on paper) It is these usability and readability issues that will be addressed in part 3 of Understanding Web Typography.
Also by Jim Byrne: How To Create Accessible PDFs with Adobe Acrobat 6 - a practical guide.
Index | Next: Section Two: Accessible web text - sizing up the issues