[css-fonts] Pseudo-generic font families

[Crissov]

Several actual (Western) typeface names are sometimes used generically, in that there are either metrically compatible clones (with more liberal licenses) or multiple digitizations of the same lead-era typeface.

Should implementations explicitly be allowed to treat them more like keywords in <'font-family'> if they are not quoted, i.e. choose an alternative font that is available?

This would primarily affect the set of Microsoftʼs Core fonts for the Web, which also contain the de facto standard mappings for the generic font families serif (Times or Times New Roman), sans-serif (Arial) and monospace (Courier or Courier New).

[Myndex]

It would be good to have a set of accessible fonts as defined standards, so long as they don't have the serious problems of Courier New and Arial Condensed.

Courier New is one of the worst possible fonts for web use, next is Arial Condensed.

FWIW, I have a preprint of a paper on accessible fonts:

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/338149302_Evaluating_Fonts_Font_Family_Selection_for_Accessibility_Display_Readability

_{Edited to be nicer}

[Crissov]

See #5819, also #4910, #4566.

[PeterCon]

@Myndex: It's regrettable that, of all the fonts developed by Microsoft, you make a sweeping judgment based on Arial Narrow and Courier New, which were based on some earlier font designs and not specifically for optimizing on-screen legibility, while disregarding Georgia and Verdana, both of which were designed with on-screen legibility in mind and which you evaluate as good for accessibility and readability. Or Sitka Text, which was developed using scientific evaluations of legibility (see Larson & Carter, 2016.

Also, it would have been helpful if your paper on evaluating fonts for legibility had provided some details, or even reference to some separate work, explaining how you actually arrived at objectively-measured evaluations and what the scientific basis was for the evaluations.

[Myndex]

Hello Peter @PeterCon

For the record, when I made that offhand remark in the post above, it was more focused toward the reviled "core web fonts".

And to be clear, in the paper I never mentioned Microsoft. The paper was clearly stated as an informal guidance on font characteristics for accessibility, and I gave positive reviews to both Georgia and Verdana (both of which were designed by noted type designer Matthew Carter.) I certainly did not "disregard them" as you say.

Because it was an informal guidance booklet it does not come with a formal bibliography, but the in-progress, in depth work shall, as it's part of a larger work on contrast and readability for web based content.

Accessibility

Let me pause for a moment here: I am not talking about fonts as far as their aesthetic design. I am talking strictly about accessibility, including research on dyslexia, cognitive, contrast perception, and visual impairments.

Some accessibility points are: does a given font...

• have adequate tracking, kerning, and leading? (letter spacing and linespacing)
• have an adequate x-height? (Ideally ~60% of the font-size)
• have adequate weight? (Adequate stroke thickness at 400)
• have a "good" Cap-height? (For differentiating from x and allowing good leading)
• avoid common homoglyphs? (Meaning rn vs m and 1 vs l vs I are distinct.)
• avoid mirror image glyphs? (Meaning db or qp or MW are not literal mirror copies)
• have good hinting for screen use? (Meaning is designed to render well to standard resolution screens.)

Most of these characteristics are discussed prominently in the current research into readability. For cites, I refer to Lovie-Kitchin, Bailey, Arditi, Legge all of whom I rely on and who have done the bulk of the work in readability for normal and impaired vision. All that said:

Re: MS Fonts

Interestingly, Sitka Text was also a Matthew Carter creation, like Verdana, so not surprising it looks good. Nice to see.

As a result of your post, I did a much deeper dive into the history of "MS Fonts" by which I mean the "core web fonts" which MS distributed once upon a time. Those were the proprietary fonts Andalé Mono, Arial, Arial Black, Comic Sans MS, Courier New, Georgia, Impact, Times New Roman, Trebuchet MS, Verdana and Webdings,

Of THAT group, only Georgia, Verdana, and maybe Trebuchet MS are "accessible friendly". The problem with Trebuchet is the default track/kerning is too tight, so it's not normally on my list of "good" fonts for accessibility.

But also of that group, Courier New is nothing short of an unusable illegitimate version of the classic Courier typeface. Arial is nothing but a pure copy of Helvetica, which I also give somewhat low marks to regarding accessibility. Times New Roman with its small size and small x-height make it less than desirable for web use (The small size of Times made it a choice for newspapers who were concerned with jamming as much text into as small a space as possible).

As a result of the deeper dive, I see that some of the fonts I loath the most were Microsoft commissions to Monotype. ..... And looking further, Monotype is behind a few other fonts I consider "bad" which have nothing to do with Microsoft... and/or that are just knockoffs of some other font. Microsoft seems to have a close business relationship to Monotype. Hmmm.

Nevertheless, it was MS that chose the core fonts, and Microsoft has more recent fonts that are also poor for accessibility. But for that matter, most foundries do too, considering that accessibility is not usually at the forefront of design, sad as that may be.

But getting back to Courier New it is not even a faithful copy and it's horrendous for screen use. Examples:

Real Courier is a fairly readable font, but the MS commissioned Courier New is so very light it is unusable. Times New Roman renders smaller than many other fonts for a given font-size. While newspapers try to save paper, this is an accessibility problem and there is no "paper" to save on the web.

And I included some more recent MS examples, like Gulim, Cordia, and Iris ... like, wut?

And for the record, my critique is only and exclusively directed at accessibility issues of the cited fonts. If it's any consolation to you, many Google fonts are also anti-accessible.

And I do give MS credit for commissioning Matthew Carter to add some good solid designs to MS's fonts.

Thank you,

Andy

[Myndex]

Hi @Crissov

Thinking about this and accessibility issues: I do think it would be good to specify some very standard fallbacks, but those fallback fonts should be ones that are accessible.

While writing a response to Peter's comment, it occurred to me that the license for the original core fonts might permit making modified versions for accessibility (I'd need to read the license carefully)... but if it is okay, then we could generate accessible versions, and those would be the defaults...

A

[PeterCon]

@Myndex Hi, Andy

Thanks for the clarifications.

For the record, when I made that offhand remark in the post above, it was more focused toward the reviled "core web fonts".

That's not what your remark appears to be saying, though:

It would be good to have a set of accessible fonts as defined standards, so long as Microsoft is not allowed to create them.

That's a general statement about any fonts that Microsoft has made or might ever make.

[Myndex]

Hi Peter @PeterCon

I may have been grumpier than usual that day. And to be honest, I'm glad you called me on it — when someone does that my usual reaction is to look deeper into something. As a result, I ended up reading the paper on the research surrounding Sitka Text and I'm glad to know there is at least a part of MS that is making a proactive difference.

Nevertheless, who at MS was behind Gulim, Cordia, and Iris? And what can MS do to fix the decades old problem of Courier New? From the standpoint of accessibility, these are some of the problems that formed negative opinion in this regard.

Thank you,

Andy

[astearns]

@PeterCon @Myndex I do not think this back-and-forth is contributing to the issue. But I am also a bit at a loss as to why this issue exists.

@Crissov couldn't this have been a comment in #4910?

@Myndex could you add a comment to #4910 with your suggestion about accessible fonts?

Then we could close this out in favor of the more general ongoing discussion there about whether more generic font families is a good idea.

[Myndex]

Sorry Alan @astearns, moving my main comment over there...

[Crissov]

While this issue is somewhat related to the criteria for generic font families, it deals with a distinct, specific question:
May implementations treat unquoted font families of their own choosing like keywords?