[LINK] Environmental impact of web versus print

[Ivan Trundle]

On 27/09/2006, at 12:40 PM, Karl Auer wrote:

> That's an empirical result, not an assumption - good. Was there any
> correlation between stated comfort and amount of eye movement? What
> about eye movement over time - less as people tired, or more? You  
> imply
> that the old research found more eye movement with sans-serif than  
> with
> serif (which is what I would expect given the lesser amount of
> redundancy in sans-serif). You'd kind of expect to get more eye  
> movement
> as the reader tired (and less accurate eye movement).
>
> Sorry to be picky, but we live in an age of bad research and piss-poor
> interpretation of same. It's worth being precise.

We could get pickier still - what's any of this to do with  
'readability'? More to the point, what's 'readability' to do with the  
discussion of what is comprehended? Why is redundancy in character  
perception needed? There's some good stuff in here, but we're way off- 
topic. But I'll persist, if only to be shot down in flames later...

Serif fonts were essential to comprehension when print and paper  
quality was poor. Redundancy in comprehension of the characters was  
vital to making any sense at all. When pixels arrived, serifs more  
often than not simply got in the way. And in very small print, they  
are a positive hinderance. But to non-paper materials: check most  
mobile phones, iPods, and other small devices with any kind of  
display. Why do the majority of them use sans-serif? Sure, it all  
sprang about from difficulties in representing serifs in a limited  
display model, but nonetheless, this is now the norm for many.

I wonder how businesses with style guides manage: do any of them  
dictate a serif font for print, and a sans-serif font for web?

iT