[dsevil]

I've seen some comments about how Times New Roman was replaced with something else to improve readability by many.

There's an irony: the _Times_ (of London) commissioned it in 1932 to improve the readability of its newspaper, which previously used a Didone/Modern style typeface.

I like Times New Roman and I find Calibri, a rounded-corner sans serif, to be an absolute abomination of milquetoast typography.

[rtkwe]

It may look better but it's harder to read basically across the board for anyone with difficulty distinguishing letters. Sans serif fonts are easier for people with dyslexia without going all the way to a dyslexia specific font. They're also generally far better for people with all sorts of poor vision.

It really comes down to the fact that it's better to be functional, forms don't need to /look/ good they need to work well. For aesthetic things we can still use the pretty fonts.

[Fnoord]

For aesthetic or other preferences you change the default font to whatever you please. The default font shouldn't be about aesthetics, it should be first and foremost about usability. Especially on printed media since there it cannot be changed in a whim.

A couple of years ago I went into archives of Dutch newspapers to learn whether and how the famine of hunger in Ukraine (known as Holodomor) was reported back in 1930's. Fuck me, it was hard to read those excerpts. But it is what it is. OCR could've converted the font. The problem is, is the OCR accurate? Like, is my search with keywords having a good SnR, or am I missing out on evidence?

Personally, Times New Roman was likely the reason I did not like Mozilla Thunderbird. I have to look into that.

[tommica]

> The default font shouldn't be about aesthetics, it should be first and foremost about usability.

The thing about usability is that it's both objective and subjective, and one can argue that aesthetics is part of usability. For example, I find writing code much more pleasant with Comic Code font, and I can imagine that there are other people that would hate it.

[rtkwe]

Sure but I think we could agree it looking nice ranks lower than being structurally more difficult to read for people? If there were a freely preinstalled option that was both sure but given the choice between functional and aesthetic readability wins hands down.

[codechicago277]

Off topic but did you find anything interesting? I spent a few days researching Holodomor and was surprised how poorly understood it still is even today, and badly reported at the time. Good propaganda case study. There’s a dramatic film about the reporting too, Mr. Jones (2019).

[vintermann]

I haven't researched it explicitly, but I do come across "what happens in the wider world" notices in small historical newspapers and sometimes I search to see what it was about. Saw a mention about some general winning an important victory, searched his name, found out he was one of the whites, and the first thing claimed about him was that he only came in "once the war was already lost".

[Fnoord]

What I found was that yes, it was reported about, but very little. The notable person who did research the event, Gareth Jones, is indeed an interesting story (he was also referenced to by the newspapers). I believe it was underreported, but we could've known. Helped, now that is a different question I don't dare to answer. The Soviets used disgusting tactics in Eastern Europe, see the book Bloodlands.

[MadnessASAP]

> For aesthetic or other preferences you change the default font to whatever you please.

Ever tried changing the font of a printed document? Or a PDF?

[Fnoord]

Printed document isn't what I was on about. There the default should 100% be about accessibility (and then we just want that by default cause we're used to it).

PDF -> Nope.

.doc(x) -> Sure.

Website, OS, apps (including terminal) -> Sure.

Now regarding PDF I might've tried a long time ago when reading some old document (like CIA about MKULTRA). I don't remember if I succeeded. But there are PDF editors out there. I do think it likely screws layout (esp. larger documents), but that can be true for .doc(x) as well.

[MadnessASAP]

I think it would be a smaller issue if it only applied to digital media. Presumably though this applies to all media.

And I can certainly confirm that changing the font of PDF will almost always result in a unreadable mess. Something about how a PDF doesn't have text "blocks" and instead fixes each character making text reflow almost impossible.

[Fnoord]

There's no irony in that: different medium.

The Dutch dev of Calibri commented on the history [1].

He makes a couple of good points, nuances. The main one I liked is related to your premise: it was that the Times New Roman font was optimized for printing newspapers whereas his successor was meant for computer screens.

Ultimately, IMO this is just bullying people with bad eyesight and dyslexia (and said bullying I can only regard as hatred towards minorities which reminds me of a different era). My father had MS and due to that bad eyesight. He had special glasses with a special lens to read. Of course any font change has a learning curve, but to me this just hits home as I've seen him struggle to read.

[1] https://nos.nl/l/2594021

[Cordiali]

> He had special glasses with a special lens to read.

Bifocals, I'm guessing.

[cromulent]

Many people with MS get diplopia, and so need prismatic lenses to help with the double vision.

[Fnoord]

He passed away ten years ago, the glasses were custom-made in 70's or so. He'd close one eye and use the other (better suited for this). He'd have tremors, including in the eyes. Reading made him very tired, eventually a friend would read complex beta literature before him. To me (as kid) the glasses felt like a huge looking glass.

A friend of my parents also made a custom card deck, with huge symbols and letters. That way, we could work around his disability. We always had to work around his disability, and it regressed but slow variant and he was also too old to get the medicine which effectively stopped the MS from getting worse. However, it meant other people who had the quick version or were younger got more QoL.

I don't think he ever used Calibri. I mean, at that time, he wasn't into computers anymore. He had all kind of health isssues due to MS. It pains me to think people like him now have more difficulty to read letters because of BS decisions like these just cause NIH or whatever the silly reason must be. But there's also good news: if it is digital, they can override the font and such.

[cromulent]

Sounds like he had lots of good people around him helping him.

The technical aspects you mention are important. I have diplopia, and also close one eye. It gets worse in the evenings. I love paper books and own many, but all my reading now is on a Kindle, with a huge font. It makes it so much easier.

[Sunspark]

Have you tried eye-patching as a therapy to train the non-dominant eye?

[dghf]

As others have said, Times New Roman was specifically designed for newspapers:

* condensed glyph widths, for ease of setting in narrow columns

* high x-heights and short ascenders and descenders, so lines can be set tighter and more text thus fitted on the page

* robust forms and serifs to allow for the tendency of newsprint to absorb and spread ink

These features don't necessarily translate to improved readability in other contexts.

[alphabetag675]

Times New Roman was designed for a time when printing quality was not that good. With 1080p screen nowadays, that barrier is removed, so optimization of readability has different constraints.

[jimnotgym]

I found that Calibri looks better than TNR on a low dpi screen. The serifs just make the letters look jagged.