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Akasha Goins

Fox School of Business

August 4, 2019 By Akasha Goins Leave a Comment

Digital Transformation & Font

Jakob Nielsen published 10 usability heuristics for user interface design. If you are not familiar with them, you can check them out here. All 10 principles should be kept in mind when designing for users, but let’s focus on the Aesthetic and Minimalist design principle in the context of type/text. It is important that type is not too busy as this can distract the user from their task on the site or mobile app. It should be clear and so the user can easily navigate the site. This goes for all type and text; the font should never take away from the content.

In Type in the digital era is a mess, the author states that UI designers must balance historical principles with new practices. Fonts used to be solid blocks then they became strings of numbers. This digital shift added a new level of complexity to text/type. The shift transferred the control from the typesetters (original UI designers) to web browsers. With a printing press, the outcome was more predictable but with web, designers were running into quirky issues with leading, now known as line spacing. The widely experienced issue was solved with the creation of OpenType. OpenType was created to provide fonts that are versatile and to cut down on fonts available. Inside OpenType there are three sets of values and different platforms and programs would pick one of the sets (hhea, OS/2 and win).

These fonts are on the busier side. While I don’t think they would distract me from my mission they may make reading content slightly challenging. These would be better used for a headline and not content.

These fonts are very simple and pleasing. They are less busy, more spaced and there is no strain on the eye.

A designer can also choose to use more than one font, but they should complement each other. The fonts below are quite different, but they don’t clash.

Sure, a font may look spaced on your desktop, but consider mobile web users. Will the font look cluttered on a smaller screen? I also think the heuristic principle; efficiency of use can be applied to this topic. What do you think UI designers should keep in mind when choosing fonts?

 

References

Kliever, J. (N. d.). Fonts. Retrieved from https://www.canva.com/learn/font-design/
Nielsen, J. (1994). 10 Usability Heuristics for User Interface Design. Retrieved from https://www.nngroup.com/articles/ten-usability-heuristics/
Scheinchelbauer, R. (2012). Vertical Metrics. Retrieved from https://glyphsapp.com/tutorials/vertical-metrics
Wichary, M. (2019). Type in the digital era is a mess. Retrieved from https://www.fastcompany.com/90340882/type-in-the-digital-era-is-a-mess

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