Font alphabet video

[kestrell]

Daily Bits had a link to this video which shows off a different font style for each letter of the alphabet
http://www.dailybits.com/a-is-for-arial-b-is-for-baskerville
and as someone who does a lot of scanning of print material, I'm interested in which fonts are most likely to scan well versus the ones which will be a pain to scan and recognize.
WebAim has this article on font accessibility
http://webaim.org/techniques/fonts/
but I'm also interested in which fonts folks think have the cleanest lines. I've been saving scanned materials in Times New Roman, but would Verdana be a better choice?

Comments

[duskpeterson]

You wrote:

"I'm interested in which fonts are most likely to scan well versus the ones which will be a pain to scan and recognize."

My reply:

Depends on the OCR program, doesn't it? I use OmniPro, and it has never met a typeface it doesn't like. But other OCR programs might have their own preferences.

You wrote:

"I'm also interested in which fonts folks think have the cleanest lines."

My reply:

That too is a matter of individual choice. Some partially sighted folks prefer serif fonts, some prefer sanserif fonts, some prefer thin-stroked fonts, and some prefer thick-stroked fonts. I think Veranda is a good compromise, especially since it appears on all computer systems.

Times New Roman, on the other hand, is one of the more difficult fonts for partially sighted people to read, because it's a very compressed font. As its name implies, it was originally designed for newspaper columns, where you want to cram in as many words as possible. The only reason that it became widely used for other purposes is that Microsoft - with all its usual typeface ignorance - made it the default font for Microsoft Word. As a result, Times New Roman now looks, quote, normal, end quote, to most people, but it's still a very scrunched-up font.

[kestrell]

Thanks! I was hoping to hear from some low-vision people, as I went blind about the time the Internet happened, and there didn't seem to be as many typefaces and fonts in use at that time. Now I'm wondering what ophthamologists use for vision testing?

[duskpeterson]

You know, I never even paid attention. I have a vague memory of it being a thick-stroked, sanserif type.

One ophthalmologist I went to had a chart with jungle animals on it. He had used it in Africa, with illiterate patients, but it worked just as well with a legally blind friend of mine who could never see letters well enough to read eye charts.

[duskpeterson]

Sorry, I mean Verdana. Obviously, spelling isn't my strong suit. :)