Frankly speaking, who on earth decided to use Serif fonts for statistical tables? The people who type, choose the font and print these tables have surely not used them at all. My verdict: It’s extremely difficult to read, especially when we are rushing for time during the examinations. The tiny curly numbers never fail to make me dizzy. I always take a few moments to reread the numbers again because I tend to read them wrongly. Please tell me I am not the only one who has this problem. I swear it looks a lot worse on the actual paper than the photo. It’s magnify in the photo. I feel like I’m looking at a hundred tiny worms squirming on my paper. Yes, it’s that bad.
18 March, 2010 at 6:16 am
Your website is gorgeous, I’m so jealous!
I love serif fonts, but I think everything has its right place, and tables is not it!
17 March, 2010 at 10:58 pm
Actually, there has been research done on the readability of fonts and serif fonts are found to be more visually friendly than sans-serif. Surprising but true. Until I discovered that, I always thought it was the other way round.
18 March, 2010 at 10:32 am
@Brenda: This all depends on what it’s being used for. Serif fonts are easier to read when it comes to large blocks of texts hence the reason why the vast majority of published print works use serif fonts. On a computer screen sans-serif fonts are recommended for readability, although recent developments in Internet browsers (such as text smoothing) have made serif fonts as readable as sans-serif fonts.
If you’re going to use a serif font for statistics, at least use something other than Georgia so that all the characters are on a straight line with each other! I can’t imagine the problems that it can cause, especially with statistics that should be accurate!
25 March, 2010 at 3:22 pm
Haha yeah, true. The size of the text does play a part as well. Statistical tables usually come in really small fonts – so I definitely agree that sans-serif should be used in this case! Just wanted to point out that interesting (but strange) finding about the serif versus sans-serif font debate because even I was surprised when my friend told me about it recently. Heh.
I personally love the Georgia font when reading online material. Offline, I am more inclined towards Arial. (;
17 March, 2010 at 9:32 pm
I actually learned about this the other day while doing my university readings. Serif fonts are not good. They work for print media like newspapers and whatnot, because of the way they are designed. But on the internet and for tabular data, it is extremely nasty to read.
I can see what you mean about it looking like worms. You have a nasty serif font there; one of the older kinds (I think) that have numbers displayed in a different fashion. It’s even worse than Times New Roman – which would be better than this. But of course, sans-serif fonts would have been better. @_@
17 March, 2010 at 8:00 pm
haha true sweetie, i agree with you but part of my job had to do with this and there are quite a lot of people who actually prefer serif fonts for tables! or at least, a standardized use of serif fonts throughout.. ohwells! it’s the numbers people!
17 March, 2010 at 8:10 pm
Oh, that’s odd. Perhaps they don’t use it during the exams? I find it okay under normal working condition when I’m not rushing for time. :P
17 March, 2010 at 10:06 am
o.O
Serif fonts are used as some sort of a style. It’s never that great to read on to begin with. But typography has improved lately. I like any font that has a stroke in the ’0′, and differentiates ‘I’ (i) from ‘l’ (L).
17 March, 2010 at 1:18 am
I don’t mind serif numbers when they’re all the same height/size (like with Times). However, fonts like Georgia that go up and down, etc. definitely make it difficult to read!
16 March, 2010 at 11:24 pm
I’m glad I don’t have to read statistical tables, because I think that would drive me nuts! I love serif fonts, but they have a time and place. Numbers should be the same size/style, so they’re easy to read.
16 March, 2010 at 6:53 pm
It is more difficult to read, unless the print is big. It’s more likely that there will be errors in it too because of the design of the characters. Having it in Arial would save a lot of time!
16 March, 2010 at 3:38 pm
I agree with you! I always get dizzy when I try to read stats with that type of fonts. What were they thinking?
16 March, 2010 at 2:47 pm
Serif fonts are really difficult to read in stats. I agree. You need numbers that are neat and all the same size! As a math major, I completely back you up on this one. Man, I’d go bonkers.
16 March, 2010 at 1:31 pm
First of all I just wanted to say I love your website and I love your blog. You designed everything so nicely and I also love the pictures you have taken, they’re great shots. You do everything so well. I like your style and your art!
I’ve contacted you on dA and through this website using the Contact page about 3 days ago, just a heads up!
I agree and feel the same way about about the Serif Font numbers. They are hard to read. Some of the numbers are uneven, shorter than others, It’s like they’re jumping up and down! I don’t know who would choose to use them, it’s best to stick to Arial. =p
16 March, 2010 at 2:28 pm
Thanks for the lovely compliments!
I will try my best to reply to the mails asap because I’m quite busy recently.
Arial is the best choice when it comes to study materials because they are the easiest to read. I’m just not fond of lecturers that likes to use fancy fonts in their notes.
16 March, 2010 at 12:39 pm
I’m not the only one who hates this! Woot! This annoys me to no end, my head starts spinning and I take more time because my eyes gloss over the numbers because I don’t want to see it.
17 March, 2010 at 9:24 pm
I can see it.