[HN Gopher] Atkinson Hyperlegible Font ___________________________________________________________________ Atkinson Hyperlegible Font Author : zdw Score : 542 points Date : 2022-09-11 14:24 UTC (8 hours ago) (HTM) web link (brailleinstitute.org) (TXT) w3m dump (brailleinstitute.org) | schoen wrote: | How effective is the German FE-Schrift license plate typeface for | this purpose? | | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FE-Schrift | | It was designed to make different characters visually distinct | from one another, but also especially difficult to _alter_ into | something visually similar. The latter part is a slightly | different goal. | TakeBlaster16 wrote: | Maybe it would work, but I can't see myself ever using a font | without lowercase letters. | NelsonMinar wrote: | I'm uncomfortable with people publishing work like this without | studies to back up whether they work for their intended audience. | I'm sure the Braille Institute is expert in needs of low vision | readers. And the design certainly looks promising. But AFAICT no | one has studied whether this font is actually more readable. | https://www.maxkohler.com/notes/2021-02-16-atkinson-hyperrea... | | The mess with the popular-but-not-effective OpenDyslexic isn't | good for anyone except publishers wanting to tick off an | "accessibility" checkbox. (Thinking particularly of the library | e-reader Axis360 which includes only two fonts; a bad regular | font and a "dyslexia font". Neither are particularly readable | IMHO.) https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5629233/ | culi wrote: | To be fair, most studies on fonts, at least as they relate to | reading speed, have shown that there's much more cultural | variation than we realize. Different line spacing, serifs vs | sans serifs, font weights, etc can all affect reading speed | positively or negatively based on age of the reader or cultural | background. | | It turns out that the fastest fonts to read in are the ones | people have practiced using the most. | | Given this, perhaps a more useful metric would be the maximum | reading speeds for each font. This could give us something of | an idea of what is possible given sufficient proficiency. | | Fonts like Atkinson Hyperlegible are very well designed around | some simple but well accepted principles yet, to most people | without a designer's eye, it looks like any other sans serif | font | | --- | | PS if you wanna keep up with the latest in font readability | research, you should check out the Readability Consortium: | | https://www.thereadabilityconsortium.org/ | clearcarbon wrote: | As a dyslexic the mechanism for OpenDyslexic always seemed a | little off for me. How does a differently shaped font help | adjust for a difference in cognition? | | However in this case it would seem like focusing on ensuring | that the letters can be distingushed with poor vision has a | more direct mechanism? - though it may be that other fonts are | better | pbhjpbhj wrote: | >"How does a differently shaped font help adjust for a | difference in cognition?" | | AIUI for some people with cognitive difficulties when using | text they find orientation of glyphs (which form letter | characters) to be difficult to discern, and similarities | across glyphs to be confusing. Thus, if glyphs are more | differentiated from one another, and if they have a non- | rotationally-symmetrical shape, then letters can be easier to | comprehend. | | I'm curious whether fonts like Dyslexie mighty bed better for | those learning to read. Children learning to read often | confuse letters, b/d/p/q for example. I can see ways it could | both help and hinder. | _emacsomancer_ wrote: | The answer to the question "Was there any scientific data or | studies used in the design?", which begins "The design comes | from the tradition of type design. It's not really rocket | science... " does little to inspire confidence. | gnicholas wrote: | I work in this area and it's true that OD hasn't fared well in | various studies, but there are some people who swear by it. | When it comes to matters of cognition and perception, it's hard | to say what does or does not actually make a difference for | people, and what evidence should be accepted. | | After enough people asked for an OD option in my browser | extension (which is used heavily in the dyslexia, ADHD, and | vision impaired communities, as well as by other readers), we | decided to offer it. I know the science behind it is not | stunning, but who am I to tell people that the thing they think | helps them read does not actually help them read? Even if they | read more slowly with OD than without (something I'm not sure | is true for people who choose to use OD), it's possible that | one might enjoy reading more with OD even if it doesn't improve | reading speed. | | I wholeheartedly agree with your point about companies wanting | to check the box on accessibility by offering OD, and it's | unfortunate more companies don't do more. | taeric wrote: | This implies there is a study showing the open dyslexic font is | actually not good? I can't say that would shock me, but it is | surprising that they wouldn't have done some studies to justify | the claims. | | Edit: the second link wasn't loading for me, so now I see the | study. Bad phone internet... :( Again, still surprised they | didn't have the counter study. | yellow_lead wrote: | That's the NIH study that was linked. | | > Results from this alternating treatment experiment show no | improvement in reading rate or accuracy for individual | students with dyslexia, as well as the group as a whole. | NelsonMinar wrote: | That's the key finding. And while "no effect" may sound | harmless the Discussion section of the paper highlights all | the ways having a popular ineffective solution is actively | harmful to people with dyslexia. | taeric wrote: | Yeah, apologies for my post before the extra links loaded | for me. Definitely should have either worded it with the | expectation that the link was that study, or waited. | | My intent was to express that surprise that they didn't | have studies showing benefit. That is, the implication | that really surprised me was the reverse, that there are | not studies showing it works. | [deleted] | mabbo wrote: | I feel as though there should be a standard set of tests that any | or all fonts run through to demonstrate the various properties | they want to claim. | | Don't tell me "better", tell me "Scored an 8.6 on legibility in | the standard font assessment test". | leephillips wrote: | That would be valuable in comparing and searching for fonts. | But some of these criteria are aesthetic. | riedel wrote: | Why do content creators need to do this? Particularly if they | are experts and live off the trust in their experience. I am | very happy if someone publishes something and states there | goals an claims, so someone else can verify them independently. | If it is not working they would risk reputation. | | If a few publisher's really check accessibility against | relevant end users and verify that this works it is much | better, than any kind of scores that often overlook important | usability/accessibility issues. | | a11y Checkers are OK like any linter but I think we should not | overdo this. That something has a higher score does not | translate to better overall a11y. | CodeWriter23 wrote: | It's from The Braille Institute. They ARE the standard when it | comes to dealing with vision challenges / vision loss. | userbinator wrote: | Ironically those who need Braille are also unlikely to care | how readable a font is. | samatman wrote: | The Institute is named after the same person as the writing | system for the blind, rather than being named after that | writing system. | wcerfgba wrote: | Are there any monospaced fonts like this, with a focus on | hyperlegibility? | fxtentacle wrote: | I'm going to assume you want to use it for development. For | screen fonts, you typically have different design goals, | because otherwise anti-aliasing and ClearText will reduce | contrast and void your legibility improvements by spreading | things out over subpixels. | | I tried to make my own highly legible high-contrast coding font | using TensorFlow to fit things onto a high-resolution pixel | grid based on a low-resolution draft. That way, characters | align with the pixel grid (at the right scaling) which makes | them appear much clearer. | | https://hajo.me/images/HajoCode16px_hr.png | | https://hajo.me/blog/2021/07/24/making-a-font-that-doesnt-su... | upofadown wrote: | Smaller bitmap fonts tend to be easy to distinguish. ... once | you learn the patterns. | Terretta wrote: | Everyone has a favorite for clarity (mine is Andale Mono) but | see the hyper-configurable https://typeof.net/Iosevka/ to make | one your own. | hombre_fatal wrote: | Browsing around, the popular monospaced fonts for coding | already have high distinction between glyphs like 8Bi1l. | cratermoon wrote: | Also 0/O and '` often matter. There are probably others that | don't come to mind immediately. | cratermoon wrote: | Perhaps surprisingly, the ancient Monaco is still a good choice | for development work. It has the key features of | distinguishable 0/O and 1|Il. (Which you may not be able to | distinguish here, depending on font choices). | epgui wrote: | There are a number of very nice monospace typefaces that have | lots of character variants so you can essentially pick and | choose different letter styles (dotted, crossed or regular | zeros, etc). | | I personally love Fira Code with its ligatures. | vanderZwan wrote: | I love Fira Code. I suspect Iosevka is the winner when it | comes to customization though: | | https://typeof.net/Iosevka/ | | You can basically mimic features of almost any other big name | among monospace fonts. | | The only downside I can think of is that it updates _really | often_ and the website doesn 't have a way to save your | customizations, so upgrading is a drag. | | Given that it's a free font I'm not complaining though. | epgui wrote: | Yes, that's another great one! | xmonkee wrote: | I recently discovered Fira code through | https://www.codingfont.com/. I played with font names off, | and Fira code won two times in a row :) I'm still amazed at | how pleasant it looks on my screen. | Version467 wrote: | Oh, I didn't know of https://www.codingfont.com/, the | tournament style competition is pretty cool. I also like | that you can turn off the labels. | | I've used Fira Code for years and tried to find an | alternative on https://www.programmingfonts.org/ but it's | very difficult comparing so many different options at once. | pmarreck wrote: | I am a big fan of Berkeley Mono. It has (for me at least) this | really hard to describe fusion of retro and modern that just | feels perfect for coding and console to me. Note: Unfortunately | not free, but I did manage to figure out how to make it a | static definition as part of my NixOS declarative | configuration, lol. | | https://berkeleygraphics.com/typefaces/berkeley-mono | | Note that I just noticed that you can easily add Atkinson | Hyperlegible Font to your Nix config, the package is called | (unsurprisingly) `atkinson-hyperlegible` | Terretta wrote: | Oh wow -- I love Univers and Eurostile, makes Berkeley Mono a | contender! | pmarreck wrote: | I ended up forcing my browser to use Atkinson Hyperlegible | for sans-serif text and Berkeley Mono for monospaced text | and I may never change this config lol (although I wish I | could force sites to use just the fonts, but not the | fontsize settings, in Firefox...) | | Glorious! | pmarreck wrote: | The other cool thing about it (not sure if this is common) | is that you can customize your variety of the zero | character and a few other characters that have debatable or | preferential forms | electric_mayhem wrote: | Font preference is very subjective. | | My personal fave is bitstream vers sans mono. | | But the one that ships with pychcharm is really good, too. | roter wrote: | Python developer here seconding Bitstream Vera Sans Mono. I | like having that tiny space between successive underlines, | i.e. in things like def __init__(self, a, b, | c) | ClumsyPilot wrote: | well legibility is an objective, measurable characteristic | AlexAndScripts wrote: | That's JetBrains Mono. It's open source | falcolas wrote: | I use Atkinson for the browser things, and I personally | recommend DejaVu Sans Mono. The rest of that font family is | excellent as well. | homarp wrote: | see also https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2022/08/an-update-to-the- | atkinson-h... | takoid wrote: | If anyone else is having trouble loading the page: | https://archive.ph/ok1ro. | h3mb3 wrote: | The designer/YouTuber Linus Boman has a video [1] about this font | and his involvement in the project, it's a pretty interesting | watch IMO. | | [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wjE5eHLICzc | ainar-g wrote: | Linus' channel is severely underappreciated. I especially | enjoyed his dive into the typography of comedy club logos: | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XPmlv7cDk6Q. | asah wrote: | Curious: was this tested on users with various kinds of vision | deficiencies? | | That study would be super interesting ! | micheljansen wrote: | Note: the page itself is set in Atkinson, which looks more than | good enough to stand on its own, even if you would not be aware | of its hyperlegible properties. | cratermoon wrote: | Just FYI, I downloaded the font (after some time) and put it on | my Kobo. When I tried to use it my Kobo just rebooted. Bad news, | everyone. | | But good news, everyone. It's available from Google at | https://fonts.google.com/specimen/Atkinson+Hyperlegible and this | one works with my Kobo. | | I don't know why, I'm no font expert, but it does make for nice | reading. | DiabloD3 wrote: | Although the font did really try to nail its goal, I think | Iosevka really nailed it. | | On top of that, somebody took some of what Atkinson did with | their font, and applied it to Iosevka, using its insanely | powerful ability to be customized wildly, to produce | http://thedarnedestthing.com/iosevka%20hyperlegible | scubbo wrote: | Off-topic, but I think this might be the first time I've loaded | a url including `%20` and had it actually render in my address | bar as a space, rather than the percent-code. Is this something | new in Firefox? | riquito wrote: | It's been like this in Firefox for quite some time | Razengan wrote: | Umm that website is barely legible, let alone hyper. Small, | thin, spindly, faint, what the hell? (On Safari Ventura) | moralestapia wrote: | FWIW, the font on that blog post is not Iosevka, | | You can find Iosevka here -> https://typeof.net/Iosevka/ | einpoklum wrote: | I find the 0.5em character width reduces readability | somewhat. YMMV. | _emacsomancer_ wrote: | It is _an_ Iosevka. | mouzogu wrote: | the irony of having "hyperlegible" in the title when the title | itself is barely legible. | | using a tiny 11px grey colour font, the body text is borderline | while the navigation text is almost transparent. | IncRnd wrote: | Meybe they did that for their target audience to see that the | font is legible. | mikotodomo wrote: | Wow, this is extremely well-designed and legible. Almost perfect, | but I found one small issue in only one example on the screen. I | read "B8 1Iil" as "B8 1TiL". | shakabrah wrote: | An aside: Why is it that most posts about a new product or | project some people have put together is usually greeted with | skepticism and negativity in HN comments? What is that all about? | It is a pattern Ive continuously seen and it seems like only the | true home runs receive any kind of praise. | | Most replies are either about lack of evidence or someone's | alternative preference. I see that latter one a good deal. | Tempest1981 wrote: | It does feel like sometimes we go beyond "healthy skepticism", | and assume bad intent. I think there is good intent here. | Perhaps their work is coming from more of a liberal arts angle, | than an engineering angle. | systemvoltage wrote: | There is a healthy amount of skepticism that is required to | produce good for the society. It can be adjusted based on | supply/demand of such commodity or service. But, by large, | skepticism is _good_. As a creator myself, it is important to | equip yourself with the right mentality. I would never blame | everyone else for being skeptical. After all, most people mean | good and there is often a solid reason they 're spending time | writing about it. | | Highly, _highly_ recommend reading Adam Savage (Mythbuster | fame) 's book about creativity and skepticism, it is filled | with good wisdom: | https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/43319933-every-tool-s-a-... | | If there is a complete lack of criticism/skepticism, you get a | regressive world: https://fs.blog/chestertons-fence/ | MatthiasPortzel wrote: | Because most of the time, the original post has enumerated all | of the good things. There's no reason to reiterate the points | made in the post in the comments, and so the comments add an | opposite view. | Bakary wrote: | - The comment structure favors the 'middlebrow contrarian' | style of response. This phenomenon is particularly acute on | Reddit but on here it's a more understated process that's | proportional to HN's design differences to the former. | | - Insecurity. Criticism is the most acute and well researched | on here with child prodigies, more so than any other topic. | Since people here get their sense of identity from their self- | perception of intelligence, knowledge, and capacity to build | certain things, there are many vulnerability points. | | - Wide, industry ranging experience with bullshit technology | claims for most users. | | - Class and ethnographic differences. Criticism will vary | depending on whether the product in question is inherently | appealing to adult high-income nerds, no matter its overall | utility | throwaway_forev wrote: | It is not just when there is a post about a new product or | project. More broadly for ANY post here, the top comment and | most comments will generally claim the opposite of what the | original post presents is true (or some variation of that). | | I would say mainly it is just the need for some people to feel | good about themselves that they know better, or to try to show | that they are smarter than the author of the post (so that | again, they can feel better about themselves). | | Don't take the comments too seriously. A lot of people think | they are smarter than they actually are. | | And next time notice, whatever the post is, when you click to | view the comments expect the top one to have a contrarian view. | | EDIT: As an example, as of right now, this post is the top post | on HN. The second top post on HN? | | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32800869 | | Title: "Build Your Career on Dirty Work" | | Top Comment: "Really bad advice! Hard work does not pay" | | - | | Upon further thought, looking at the bright side (less | cynical), I guess this does help give a more balanced view of | the topic as you get to quickly see both sides of a story. But | it's still kind of funny that this consistently happens. | leeoniya wrote: | probably the same reason new JS frameworks get a lot of | criticism. adding another one expands an already daunting array | of choices to make, most often without a clear benefit, as | seems to be the case here. | TheRealPomax wrote: | Because you are the easiest person to lie to, yourself. Just | because you work in a field doesn't mean your assumptions are | valid. The more people (or you yourself) consider you an expert | in something, the more you _should_ test your assumptions | through studies etc. If you don 't, then claiming you made a | thing "for X" without any proof that X benefits from that means | you've almost certainly lied to yourself, convinced yourself | that lie was true, and are now perpetuating that lie by putting | it on the internet. Especially when you do things based on your | own experience, it's incredibly easy to forget that there are | almost infinitely more people who are different and have | different needs and experiences. | | And of course, your things can be just fine, but without proof | of that, claiming that they are just tells people you have no | idea whether what you did was actually worth anything, and that | undermines your effort. | | The thing you made MIGHT actually be great! But it might also | only be great for a super select few hyper-focussed people that | you happened to ask for help (or not even, you might have | purely relied on "your own past experiences"!), and be terrible | in general. | | Make tiny claims centered around tiny groups (e.g. "I/my | customers needed something better so I made this"), not a | problem. Make big claims involving "everyone" (e.g. "we made a | typeface that improves legibility")? Back them up with proof. | Show the studies where you've pitched it against a wide set of | other typefaces, and have people of all visual impairment | levels perform (also scientificially justified for this | purpose) tasks that hinge on legibility. | | (Because winning awards may be nice, but doesn't tell us | anything. It just says "other people already liked this". It | doesn't say anything about whether the thing you made is | actually good) | deltasevennine wrote: | >Why is it that most posts about a new product or project some | people have put together is usually greeted with skepticism and | negativity in HN comments? What is that all about? | | It makes perfect sense why these things are greeted with | skepticism. Because Most things in the world don't succeed. | Most things fail. Thus when you see things treated with | negativity and skepticism that is MORE likely to be inline with | the actual reality. Thus if HN is actually more negative then | normal, then that means HN users have a more realistic view of | reality. | | >Most replies are either about lack of evidence or someone's | alternative preference. I see that latter one a good deal. | | Why is the latter a good deal if it isn't true? If 99.999% of | the world doesn't have this alternative preference it's biased | to even bring it up. There's no need to be personally insulting | but if you think something is genuinely bad then i think it's | perfectly ok to just say what you think. | | When someone asks for praise, or when someone asks for | positivity in a way they are by probability more likely to be | asking for fake opinions and white lies. I don't come to HN for | that kind of thing. But I will say that Dang (the moderator) | loves this kind thing; and the moderation culture he promotes | is more inline with your attitude. If you see a negative post, | you can flag it, and he will take a side. | forgotpwd16 wrote: | >Why is it that most posts about a new product or project some | people have put together is usually greeted with skepticism and | negativity | | Because most posts about a new product or project tend to make | extravagant claims without anything to back it up. "The best", | "the fastest", "the smallest", "the most legible", etc. | pmarreck wrote: | Did we hug it to death? Not loading over here | | EDIT: it loads now | djcannabiz wrote: | I use this for my IDE, I dont have any vision issues or anything, | its just really nice to look at :) | mrunseen wrote: | It is more legible than your average "font-family: sans-serif" | (aka Arial, Roboto, Helvetica) but it's not that much of an | "original idea". For example _Frutiger_ by Adrian Frutiger, a | type family that a lot of airports use as it's designed with | legibility at long distances, or even the _Verdana_ by Matthew | Carter, ubiquitous web font that powers this and a lot of other | websites' typography that has specifically designed for | legibility on low resolution screens, aren't _that_ less legible | than this font. Still, I like the idea that some people on | Braille Institute has decided to commission a typeface with a | "free" license. | Gordonjcp wrote: | It looks almost exactly like Helvetica. | fredleblanc wrote: | Also worth checking out is the Lexend family: | https://www.lexend.com/ | | I love seeing this push into legibility! | sumul wrote: | Yes! I auditioned dozens of fonts for the UI of | https://figure.game and chose Lexend for its legibility, even | at small sizes. It's also got lots of understated charm and | character (no pun intended) in my opinion. After reading about | the project, I was very impressed with the reading fluency | improvements reported, especially considering that (to me) it | just looks like a very classy contemporary geometric sans. | Sunspark wrote: | Reminder that fonts are subjective. | | This one is good for specific people, not everyone. I can't use | it because I find it overly rounded with tics. | | An example of a font that is also meant to be legible, but is on | the squarish side, is Tiresias Screenfont. | | Increased legibility does NOT mean "flow". Just because each | character is more "distinct" does not mean that the whole word is | able to be processed with ease. Important to evaluate them in | body text. | | Also, one's cultural background absolutely affects which fonts | are preferred. If you grew up with German blackletter writing, | you're not necessarily going to like or appreciate a sans-serif | font. In Germany's case, the change from blackletter to latin | shapes happened fairly recently (WW2). It's happening now again, | Kazakhstan has decided to stop using cyrillic and change to latin | characters. | jackblemming wrote: | >Reminder that fonts are subjective. | | Yes but you can survey a fraction of a population and make | strong statistical claims such as, "most people found so and so | font more readable". | Sunspark wrote: | Which population though? There are differences in age groups. | People who grew up only with print won't lean toward a sans. | People who grew up only with screens will lean toward sans, | etc. | | If you go with that metric of doing a survey, then the answer | is Times New Roman and Arial, not because they are superior | (though they have excellent hinting) but due to long-term | familiarity and exposure. | | I don't have a problem with providing what people are | comfortable with, but comfort does not necessarily translate | to better. It's subjective. | | Companies commissioning their own fonts, is not due to a | desire to get improved quality, but simply to not have to pay | a licensing fee for usage. | samatman wrote: | Fonts can be a core part of a company's brand identity, the | present-day fad for incredibly bland Helvetica in a solid | color notwithstanding. | jackblemming wrote: | >Which population though? | | The best population to sample would probably be the readers | of your content. | | >If you go with that metric of doing a survey, then the | answer is Times New Roman and Arial, not because they are | superior (though they have excellent hinting) but due to | long-term familiarity and exposure. | | I don't know the answer to this because I didn't do any | studies. I'm probably reasonable to assume you didn't | either, and thus should be careful about making such | assertions. | | >I don't have a problem with providing what people are | comfortable with, but comfort does not necessarily | translate to better. | | I don't know what you define as "better", or what you're | trying to get at. | | >Companies commissioning their own fonts, is not due to a | desire to get improved quality, but simply to not have to | pay a licensing fee for usage. | | Could be. This is a pessimistic take, and I'm sure it's | right sometimes and wrong other times. | KronisLV wrote: | > An example of a font that is also meant to be legible, but is | on the squarish side, is Tiresias Screenfont. | | Here's a quick example that a DuckDuckGo search turned up: | https://catalog.monotype.com/font/bitstream/tiresias/screenf... | | Personally, I rather liked the Atkinson Hyperlegible as well, | though I found the "bgrpq" characters too similar in shape | regardless, but maybe that's a criticism of the alphabet | itself. | | Regardless, a lot of the time I find myself using whatever is | popular (e.g. Open Sans for web development) or something like | Liberation Mono for writing code (though the rest of the | Liberation fonts are great alternatives to Microsoft fonts, for | example, when using LibreOffice). | | Open Sans: https://www.opensans.com/ | | Liberation fonts: | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberation_fonts | mcdonje wrote: | Preference has nothing to do with legibility. | Kaibeezy wrote: | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26011945 | fold3 wrote: | I also find the website confusing, the font is available here | however https://fonts.google.com/specimen/Atkinson+Hyperlegible | npteljes wrote: | Also here, if one would like to avoid Google somewhat | https://www.fontsquirrel.com/fonts/atkinson-hyperlegible | chronogram wrote: | GitHub link: https://github.com/ThomasJockin/readexpro | jonnycomputer wrote: | Thank you; couldn't get the download link to work. | cbsmith wrote: | The Braille Institute site makes the file available by http | instead of https, which a lot of browsers will reject for | security reasons. | GuB-42 wrote: | With a few tweaks (monospaced variant), it could make a great | coding font. | | Coding fonts have essentially the same goal: make similar looking | characters different: 1liI|, 0O, etc... Code naturally strains | our visual acuity: we want to see as much as possible, it means | that we may use a smaller font size than we would find | comfortable reading text with. Single letter, punctuation, etc... | can be really important, in regular text, you can understand even | if you can't read all the characters. So a hyperlegible font can | help coders, even those with good vision, and many coding fonts | already have "hyperlegible" features. | pen2l wrote: | Pardon me, where do I find the monospace variant? | mtrpcic wrote: | What OP was saying was a few tweaks could make a monospace | variant, which would be a nice programming font. I don't | think a monospace variant is available right now. | pen2l wrote: | Ah yes, sorry. I think MonaLisa actually fits the bill: | https://www.monolisa.dev/ | fercircularbuf wrote: | For the life of me I just can't get over how different | the g is from the rest of the letters. I find it | incredibly distracting, so I can't use this font. | pen2l wrote: | Increasing differentiability (within reason and within | identifiability) is the point of fonts that are trying to | increase legibility. g has the potential of being | confused with 9, y, 0, etc. for folks with non-optimal | sight. | | > https://www.monolisa.dev/ | onetom wrote: | Their paid (120 USD) Monolisa Plus variant does have the | regular g, though. | userbinator wrote: | Indeed, that's what I thought too when I read about the letter | distinction. The reverse slash on the 0 seems a little odd, but | otherwise this looks like a proportional version of Consolas. | turtledragonfly wrote: | Check out DejaVu Sans Mono[1], if you haven't already. That's | what I use for programming. Has good versions of 1LiI0O (etc). | | [1] https://dejavu-fonts.github.io/ | | (examples in PDF: | http://dejavu.sourceforge.net/samples/DejaVuSansMono.pdf) | NonNefarious wrote: | No font should lack crossbars on the capital "i." That's just | straight-up dumb. Nice to see that the font in question doesn't | suffer from that mistake. | | Failure to distinguish O from 0 ranks pretty high on the | "don't" list as well. | robertk wrote: | This seems like a great use case for those long zoom meeting | codes. | juancn wrote: | Do they have data backing up their claims? Also, how does it | compare to other high legibility fonts such as Highway Gothic? | | It seems like a promising font, but it needs testing. | beprogrammed wrote: | Really is quite a nice font | sylware wrote: | "Please enable JavaScript in your browser to complete this form." | | Any noscript/basic (x)html download link? | dang wrote: | Related: | | _Atkinson Hyperlegible - a font by the Braille Institute | designed for legibility_ - | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28010540 - July 2021 (1 | comment) | | _Atkinson Hyperlegible Font_ - | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26011945 - Feb 2021 (86 | comments) | | _Atkinson Hyperlegible Font_ - | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25154417 - Nov 2020 (10 | comments) | | _Atkinson Hyperlegible Font_ - | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24853550 - Oct 2020 (3 | comments) | | _A Free Hyperlegible Typeface from the Braille Institute_ - | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24791358 - Oct 2020 (4 | comments) | ComputerGuru wrote: | The link is down for me. Here is a cached copy so you can at | least see what all the hype is about: https://archive.ph/ok1ro | supernova87a wrote: | Interesting that the slash on the zero character goes in the | opposite slant direction than you normally see? | | Also, in the middle of that webpage, they show how the shapes in | "ER79jr" are slightly different from conventional (they didn't | notate it but I assume the yellow background alternate shapes are | what are usually seen), but could have used some better | explanation why those alternate shapes are confusing. | an_ko wrote: | I imagine the "backslash" in the zero is intended to make it | more distinct from O and o. | pengstrom wrote: | I assume this is to differentiate with 'O' | silvestrov wrote: | As an "O" language user, the 0-with-backslash is very wrong, | it makes my brain say "syntax error". It does definitely not | help reading speed. | | It would be much better using a 0-with-dot. | | Feels odd to use such a weird variation when there is AFAIK | only a single language using O and we never have problem with | 0 being mistaken for O. | awoooo wrote: | Maybe opticians should use this as their eyesight testing font. | If they don't already. | homarp wrote: | https://github.com/denispelli/Eye-Chart-Fonts says "The Sloan | font file was created by Denis Pelli based on Louise Sloan's | specifications and used for the Pelli-Robson contrast | sensitivity chart (Pelli, Robson, & Wilkins, 1988). | | Louise Sloan's design has been designated the US standard for | acuity testing by the National Academy of Sciences, National | Research Council, Committee on Vision (NAS-NRC, 1980)." | OneLeggedCat wrote: | I like this idea, but when I go to the web page... | | > Download the Font... and change the world! By downloading, | installing and/or using the font software, you confirm that you | have read and agree to be bound by the terms of this End-User | License Agreement... | | Sigh. I guess I need to read that EULA. | | Anyway, clicking on that then downloads a pdf rather than a nice | link to some web page text. Sigh. | | So then anyway, trying to open that pdf then fails in the first | two readers I tried. Sigh. | | Why must everything in the world be so hard? Fuck it, never mind. | I'll let someone else change the world and wait for widespread | adoption for this font to reach me in whatever other ways. | naillo wrote: | I had such a different experience. I found the EULA | surprisingly readible and easy to understand. Just 5 easy | bullet points rather than a multi page document of legalese. | Zak wrote: | They could have used the SIL Open Font License instead. | People in the open source world are often already familiar | with it, and resources like tl;dr Legal are available for it. | | Their EULA is, in fact almost exactly the SIL Open Font | License, but someone decided minor changes in wording were | more valuable than standardization. | | https://scripts.sil.org/cms/scripts/page.php?item_id=OFL_web | | https://tldrlegal.com/license/open-font- | license-(ofl)-explai... | ShockedUnicorn wrote: | If you go to the google fonts version of this font ( | https://fonts.google.com/specimen/Atkinson+Hyperlegible ) | | It DOES use SIL Open Font License. Maybe it's dual | licensed? | aliqot wrote: | That could have been in-page information rather than a PDF. | Or even better, get rid of it. EULA for a font is a wishful | move. | balefrost wrote: | The EULA is giving you permission to e.g. copy and modify | the font with certain restrictions (e.g. include the | license text if you distribute it). In that regard, it's | not terribly dissimilar in spirit from an open source | software license. | danuker wrote: | Why is it not an actual open source license? Perhaps CC- | By or something? | leephillips wrote: | It downloads rather than opening in your browser because that's | how you've configured your browser. For me it opens in the | browser (albeit in a new tab). There's nothing wrong with the | PDF, I can open it with all the PDF readers on my machine; it's | a basic v.1.6 PDF file. This is, in fact a "nice link to some | web page text": a page of text served over the web. | teo_zero wrote: | I think linking a PDF is less friendly to users who need | Text-to-Speech technology, something the Braille Institute | should be sensitive to... | Tempest1981 wrote: | What font does the PDF use? | | Maybe their Atkinson font? | GekkePrutser wrote: | It does indeed :) | | Kinda funny that you need to read the EULA before | downloading it because once you have the PDF on your | computer you have already downloaded the font. | leephillips wrote: | That's a good point. I have no idea if Text-to-Speech works | with PDF. | dotancohen wrote: | It does, and in many cases even better than on most web | pages. | einpoklum wrote: | > By downloading, installing and/or using the font software, | you confirm that you have read and agree to be bound by the | terms of this End-User License Agreement | | ... says them. I don't agree and I don't confirm. I can | download the font without accepting/consenting to whatever text | they put on the web page. And if they're not ok with that - | they can limit the availability of the download to only those | who accept whatever weird terms they put in that PDF you | mentioned. Except they won't do that, since that would harm | adoption of their font. | | More about this kind of "licenses": | | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shrink_wrap_contract | npteljes wrote: | >And if they're not ok with that | | Then they can sue. EULAs often state things that don't matter | in the jurisdiction of the end user, yes. But copyright is | not related to that. If they hold the copyright to the font, | then they can set the rules in the license, and if those | don't clash with the local laws of your place, then you're | liable legally. | | And yes, they probably won't do that. But that's, again, a | different matter, other copyrighted works are also always | stolen. | dannyw wrote: | You can clone a GPL-licensed repository without clicking any | checkboxes either, but if you violate the license, you can | expect to be sued. | lupire wrote: | Shrinkwrap/clickwrap is when the license is displayed _after_ | you pay for the product. The concept doesn 't and cannot | apply to freely downloadable content. | cyral wrote: | > Except they won't do that, since that would harm adoption | of their font. | | Is it because it would harm adoption or because it's | infeasible? You can download copyrighted images and use them | for your own profit, copy github code with GPL code for your | closed-source project, or sign pretty much any contract (say | for a car or a house) without actually reading it. Just | because there is no safeguard to ensure you are really read | what you "agreed" to, doesn't mean it's unenforcable. | | Moreover, the terms are very simple (1.5 pages) - hardly some | "weird terms" to define how you are allowed to redistribute | intellectual property. | ryanmarsh wrote: | I was showing this exact problem to my wife, a moment after | trying to order something from The Container Store and their | website being broken, just after trying to pay a bill and that | website not working too. | | I swear to God this f**ing industry. | johndough wrote: | Reminds me of the parking at my local lake were you now have | to read a 60 page EULA, a 30 page data "protection" agreement | and install an app which requires way too many permissions. I | happily paid the quite reasonable parking fee in the past | when there still was a human person collecting the money. She | was very friendly and always had an interesting story to | tell, but now she's out of her job. Anyway, the surveillance | cameras have been vandalized and parking is free now. | dylan604 wrote: | >Anyway, the surveillance cameras have been vandalized and | parking is free now. | | This totally reads like you just did the vandalizing. Just | saying ;-) | GordonS wrote: | I'm always coming across airline and hotel sites that don't | work for days at a time, or which don't work in Firefox etc. | Latest was EVA Air a week ago. | | When I think about the money these kind of sites in | particular must be losing from shoddy engineering... I | honestly don't know how their devs get away with it! | cyral wrote: | Do you have an adblocker on? It will frequently break sites | especially in the checkout process I have found (probably | because their crappy code calls some tracking/analytics | script without try/catch and can't continue). 90% of the time | disabling it for the page will fix these broken sites. | Cthulhu_ wrote: | > I swear to God this f*ing industry. | | this again. Developers and any publisher should test their | stuff with ad blockers enabled. | dotancohen wrote: | Why? They test in default configurations. As someone who | changes many, many default settings, I don't expect | developers to test in every possible combination of non- | default settings, browser extensions, atypical devices, | text zoom settings, etc. | cyral wrote: | These analytics scripts aren't critical and the checkout | process shouldn't go down just because they don't load. | It could be a user on spotty wifi or even the external | service being down entirely. I agree that they shouldn't | test all the functions of random third party extensions, | but this failure point is pretty foreseeable for reasons | besides adblock. | samatman wrote: | I'd bet there's a pretty solid correlation between using | an ad blocker and propensity to spend money, if only | because the good ones only run on desktop browsers. | Someone who owns a keyboard is likely to be white collar | if they aren't a student. | | So if you want to leave money on the table because some | dumb script which has no bearing on selling the product | breaks, go ahead and damage that funnel. | tejtm wrote: | ff on linux w/ various ad/script blockers can't ever get that | far. a never loading page that proclaims itself to be | "privileged" on my machine. | | nope. | cyral wrote: | Not sure why it wouldn't open for you, but it opens fine in | Chrome on Mac. I thought it would be some ridiculous 50 page | legalese but it's actually only 1.5 pages long. it's basically | a license similar to what you'd see on a Github repo. | soco wrote: | But why PDF at all? Is there a reason to put the online | license in a PDF? Or any other places, like the restaurant | menus? is there anybody who wants/needs to print the license | or the restaurant menu? | anigbrowl wrote: | So organizations that publish documents can store it for | legal purposes. A pdf has useful metadata that a text | document does not, and can be easily authenticated. If | there's a dispute everyone in the legal process understands | what a pdf file is. | dual_dingo wrote: | I kind of understand it for restaurant menus. Both "real" | restaurant and takeway places need to print actual menus | and/or flyers, and it's just easier to create a PDF | document and upload it to your website than it is to | reformat the document to be useful as web page in many | cases if you are not well versed in this. Since PDF readers | in browsers got decent, this isn't too much of an issue | anymore anyway, IMHO. | bardworx wrote: | My guess? They use an agency to service their website and | made the license in PDF so the org can change it without | incurring additional cost of an update. | bongobingo1 wrote: | I think you probably meant to write " _can 't_ change it | without". | bardworx wrote: | I was alluding that the Org has the ability to re-upload | the pdf in a shared resource without the need of a | developer. | | Vs making the license file a static page that would incur | billable hours to update. | schwartzworld wrote: | To OPs point, a .TXT would work just as well. | bardworx wrote: | Orgs place a lot of value on control. A TXT, even if | better, would be a hard sell. Especially in a 501(c), | where optics matter and they are targeting a demographic | that usually prefers PDFs. | solardev wrote: | > Or any other places, like the restaurant menus? is there | anybody who wants/needs to print the license or the | restaurant menu? | | Web devs are expensive, sadly, and not everyone has the | patience to figure out the DIY platforms (Square, | SquareSpace, Wix, etc.). It got a bit better during the | pandemic when takeout took off. But generally restaurants | need to print menus anyway, so it's just easier to upload | that design as a PDF than to redo it for the web with labor | they don't have, or paying for it with margins they don't | have... | GekkePrutser wrote: | I _really_ hate those restaurants that only have QR codes | on the table for menus. A restaurant is for eating and | talking, not for messing around with my phone. | | I avoid those now. During Covid there was a slight point | (though it was pretty soon proven that surface transmission | was so minor a factor not to warrant such actions). But now | we should just go back to normal menus. | KMnO4 wrote: | Heh. I went to a sushi restaurant recently and sat down | to an iPad menu. After ordering a few rolls and | confirming the order, it was delivered by a robot[0]. | After finishing the plates, I returned them to the robot | which carried them away. I scanned a QR code on the table | which allowed me to pay for everything from my phone. | | Curiously, I was presented with options to tip 18%, 20%, | 30%, or other. I thought about it and tipped accordingly | to the effort the waitress put into my experience. | | Shortly after, the manager came to me (essentially the | first point of human interaction) and asked if there was | anything wrong that caused me to tip 0%. | | So yes, I too really hate the direction restaurants are | heading in. | | [0]: https://www.pudurobotics.com/product/detail/pudubot2 | Zak wrote: | I'm curious who would get the tip in this scenario. The | sushi chef? Ok, I guess. The restaurant owner? I'm going | with 0%. The robot? Maybe if it can pass a Turing test. | verall wrote: | > The sushi chef? | | Yes, and most likely split with other cooks, | host/hostess, and waitstaff for people that refuse to use | the iPad. | | > The restaurant owner? | | Illegal in most states. | | What an iconoclast, refusing to tip hourly workers... | renewedrebecca wrote: | Only in the past few years has it been remotely expected | that you'd have to tip someone who didn't actually take | your order at a table and then walk your food out from | the kitchen. | | We've all been tricked into tipping in situations where, | honestly, the management should be paying better. And | yeah, I know that means that the cost of things will be | higher on say the menu, but the real cost of a $20 dinner | should be $24, why not just pay the $24 up front and | raise the base wages to what they should be. | | I'm pretty sure this is only an American lunacy too. | verall wrote: | Yeah but if you are in America where higher minimum wages | or public healthcare are not happening anytime soon, | maybe you should tip the hourly workers if you can afford | it? | | I think people just don't want to be confronted with the | idea that the people servicing them make a pittance. It | brings up uncomfortable feelings to have to decide how | much a service employee "ought" to be paid, each time you | eat at a restaurant. | idiotsecant wrote: | The social contract is currently approximately 'when I | interact with human wait staff I am expected to add some | cash to what the bill says on it' This is evident from, | for example, the drive-thru example. There is no waiter / | waitress, you just get your stuff and keep rolling. A tip | jar is sometimes available but is rarely expected. If I | never interact with a human and the restaurant expects a | tip I think they should tweak their presentation to more | closely adhere to that social contract. | | In actual fact I wish we could stop dancing around the | fluffy idea of when to tip and when not to tip and just | expect restaurant owners to pay their staff and include | that in the price charged for the goods. It's super | annoying having to think about this stuff all the time. | verall wrote: | Except that in most areas, tips are legally required to | go end workers (not management or ownership) and in jobs | where tips are allowed, end workers make more than in | service jobs where tips are not allowed on average. We're | talking about America, I don't know why you would expect | restaurant owners to pay workers a dime over the market | clearing price. The chances service employees get | employer provided health insurance is very low. | | I don't know your financial situation and noone is | forcing you to tip. But if you make, say, more than 3 | times what the people servicing you make, and you choose | not to tip, I think that's quite selfish. | kevin_thibedeau wrote: | Those hourly workers are getting screwed by an employer | who won't pay them what they're worth. It isn't my | responsibility to feel shame and make up for their | circumstances with an arbitrary tithe. | mjevans wrote: | I agree with tipping the robots (for whom service is | always the same) N% of their wage; which is still 0. | | Tips should be _not-legal_ and proper wages for the | workers should be _required_. | ModernMech wrote: | Lol. What's next, they'll want tips for the dishwashing | machine too? | throwaway14356 wrote: | ill put in my robotmancipation notes | JasonFruit wrote: | Sometimes now this is because of supply problems that | make a single, consistent menu embarrassing to the | business: nobody wants to have to say, "I'm sorry; we're | out of salmon and eggplant, and we haven't had coconut | milk for a week. Can I offer the three of you something | else?" An electronic menu can be changed immediately and | at practically no cost. | drekipus wrote: | This sounds like over estimating a lot of restaurants | ability to handle electronic menus. | | I don't think I've seen that functionality in many | restaurants at all. | | There is always a cost in updating the menu. | HyperSane wrote: | An electronic menu can also have prices that change every | hour based on how busy the place is or even have prices | based on demographic information gleaned from the user's | phone. | verall wrote: | What restaurants do this? | JasonFruit wrote: | International House of Hypotheticals, Strawman Cafe, and | the Red Herring Bar and Grill. | NonNefarious wrote: | +1 for you, sir | Zak wrote: | I don't mind this when it's done well. I'm going to have | to mess with _something_ to find out what food the | restaurant sells and my phone is about as good an option | as any. It can allow easier menu changes, inclusion of | specials, and the like. | | In practice, however most restaurants seem to go for a | PDF of their previous menu design formatted for printing | on a paper many times the size of my phone. That's a bad | experience and restaurants that do it deserve to lose | business over it. I'm reminded of about a decade long | period not long ago when a restaurant website was more | likely to have animations and music than the hours and | menu. | NonNefarious wrote: | Menus on phones blow. It's a pain in the ass to fussily | scroll around on a dinky screen and try to remember what | has scrolled away that you were interested in, instead of | being able to glance across a page. | | I sympathize with the PITA of changing printed menus, but | that's part of what you pay for. If I go out, I'm not | paying for a lunch-counter experience. | | E-paper menus would be a pretty good compromise, if they | could be made practical. | Cthulhu_ wrote: | PDF works better when downloaded, sent over e-mail, printed | to be used in a court case or hard archives, and has stood | the test of time. | jonpalmisc wrote: | PDF also cannot change from underneath you, unlike a web page. | Better to have a copy of what the license was at the time you | agreed to it, imo. | mattnewton wrote: | Pages can be saved in modern browsers about as easily, if | they aren't actually js apps in disguise. Never had a problem | doing just that for plain html pages like this could have | been. | dylan604 wrote: | I guess it depends on what wrote the PDF as to how much can | be edited later, but I'm constantly | opening/modifying/resaving PDFs. | bmacho wrote: | PDF can change the same as any other format. Yes, line length | in an html file if not specified is left to the browser, but | css exist and also there are other formats, like txt. | kulhur wrote: | > Why must everything in the world be so hard? | | linux user? | 12ian34 wrote: | if you want "everything in the world" to not be "so hard" | you'd probably avoid Linux. | GekkePrutser wrote: | On FreeBSD with Firefox this PDF opened right away, just | saying | bastardoperator wrote: | Loaded for me too, zero issues. | michaelmrose wrote: | Firefox and chrome will both open the PDF by default unless | you tell it to use your own reader. | | Both gnome and KDE come with a capable reader better than | your browser. | | If you don't like those there are several options. | | Reading a pdf under Linux is super easy. | aendruk wrote: | Their EULA looks similar to the OFL. I wonder why they didn't | just use that. | hermitcrab wrote: | I was talking to my opticians recently and he said "Everyone gets | cataracts, PVDs[1] and macular degeneration, if they live long | enough". So we should all be glad that people are working in this | area. | | [1]Posterior Vitreous Detachment. | cratermoon wrote: | Over the past 2-3 years I went from needing reading glasses for | small print to needing reading glasses for nearly everything in | "normal"-sized print. I even keep HN at +125% (thanks, Chrome) | because the default is too small. I still need my reading | glasses at this magnification, but I don't want to magnify it | too much more because of limited screen real-estate. This is | just from normal age-related presbyopia. | | I'm hoping that as the tech-savvy population ages, more thought | will be put into design for vision challenges. Honestly I very | low expectations, though. | hermitcrab wrote: | Tech is mostly designed by young white English-speaking males | and they tend to design with young white English-speaking | males in mind. On the plus, this means that there are quite a | few unexploited opportunities. | cratermoon wrote: | > Tech is mostly designed by young white English-speaking | males | | Indeed, and readability is one of the less pressing | problems that result from that. It's also why I have | marginal hope, at best. ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2022-09-11 23:00 UTC)