It makes absolutely no difference to me, but good on the admins for giving the option to the posters. I would've just been a dick and said this is what we're doing and that's that.
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Message Font Style/ Font Size/ Message Spacing Poll:
- Thread starter Sirpopopop
- Start date
It all looks the same shade of white to me on different computers.
Seems to me then that they should increase the contrast between the alternating background colors.
While the difference between boxes could be better, I would say either your monitors have bad contrast or you've set the brightness way too high.
It might not really matter if people are just used to seeing it used as body text, but Helvetica really isn't meant to be used outside of large headlines. The main reason for that is because its apertures (how open a letter is) are really closed. And closed apertures don't lend itself to smaller letters nearly as well as open ones. I'm a fan of Open Sans in general, but if you're not satisfied with it, I'd look for an alternative that still has open apertures.
I made a quick image showing what I'm talking about:
Bumping the point size for Open Sans up to 12 should also help deal with any rendering issues people are having. But, in general, open apertures and a good x-height (how tall a lowercase x is in relationship to the uppercase letters – the lower the contrast is, the more readable the overall type is at small sizes) are good for blocks of text like you'd see in forum posts.
I voted for #2, but it's hard to gauge how things look with such tightly-cropped screenshots.
I made a quick image showing what I'm talking about:
Bumping the point size for Open Sans up to 12 should also help deal with any rendering issues people are having. But, in general, open apertures and a good x-height (how tall a lowercase x is in relationship to the uppercase letters – the lower the contrast is, the more readable the overall type is at small sizes) are good for blocks of text like you'd see in forum posts.
I voted for #2, but it's hard to gauge how things look with such tightly-cropped screenshots.
That was really nerdy. Thank you. Also I agree now that I compare those two fonts more closely.
Yeah, just trying to comprehensive, since I'm sure most people haven't even heard of the terms before.
I'd be fine with keeping Open Sans if the letter spacing and kerning on bold and headline text was a bit tighter. Things are a bit too spaced out right now, like in the thread titles at the top of pages.
2 Is the clear winner for me. Love the font, but it could be a little bigger than it currently is.
I can see the difference on mobile but yeah I tried turning my contrast down on my work desktop and still couldn't see any difference. I don't remember being able to at home, either.
I would recommend trying the other way around, turning the contrast up and brightness down. But maybe your workplace monitor has a cheaper TN panel so the contrast isn't great in the first place. Your phone probably has an OLED screen so that's why you can see the difference better there. Surrounding lighting also plays a role.
I voted fourth option, the spacing helps make it more readable. I'm honestly indifferent between Open Sans or Helvetica though.
However can I suggest different colors for your own posts and text boxes that have quoted you?
Scratch that, changed my vote number three. This post swayed me over easily. Even in the comparison pics, you can tell Open Sans is easier to read.
Seems #4 ran away with it, but I hope the admins take this into consideration. :P
However can I suggest different colors for your own posts and text boxes that have quoted you?
It might not really matter if people are just used to seeing it used as body text, but Helvetica really isn't meant to be used outside of large headlines. The main reason for that is because its apertures (how open a letter is) are really closed. And closed apertures don't lend itself to smaller letters nearly as well as open ones. I'm a fan of Open Sans in general, but if you're not satisfied with it, I'd look for an alternative that still has open apertures.
I made a quick image showing what I'm talking about:
Bumping the point size for Open Sans up to 12 should also help deal with any rendering issues people are having. But, in general, open apertures and a good x-height (how tall a lowercase x is in relationship to the uppercase letters – the lower the contrast is, the more readable the overall type is at small sizes) are good for blocks of text like you'd see in forum posts.
I voted for #2, but it's hard to gauge how things look with such tightly-cropped screenshots.
Scratch that, changed my vote number three. This post swayed me over easily. Even in the comparison pics, you can tell Open Sans is easier to read.
Seems #4 ran away with it, but I hope the admins take this into consideration. :P
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It might not really matter if people are just used to seeing it used as body text, but Helvetica really isn't meant to be used outside of large headlines. The main reason for that is because its apertures (how open a letter is) are really closed. And closed apertures don't lend itself to smaller letters nearly as well as open ones. I'm a fan of Open Sans in general, but if you're not satisfied with it, I'd look for an alternative that still has open apertures.
I made a quick image showing what I'm talking about:
Bumping the point size for Open Sans up to 12 should also help deal with any rendering issues people are having. But, in general, open apertures and a good x-height (how tall a lowercase x is in relationship to the uppercase letters – the lower the contrast is, the more readable the overall type is at small sizes) are good for blocks of text like you'd see in forum posts.
I voted for #2, but it's hard to gauge how things look with such tightly-cropped screenshots.
I kind of go back and forth on this. While I can appreciate the larger aperture, I still find helvetica letter shaping to be more visually pleasing, and easier to parse with certain letters and letter groupings. I'm hardly a font expert though, certainly not for forum/website UI purposes.
I prefer spacing between posts, especially depending on how forum colors may change over time. In lieu of that though, a good border would be fine. No spacing with no border would be worst option I think.
What I really want is for a change in font color for the thread list page. Get against white background is not good on the eyes.
Also why not use the entire real estate of the screen? In my 16:9 monitor the posts leave out empty pillars of space on the sides! Let's use all of it, I'd say!
Also why not use the entire real estate of the screen? In my 16:9 monitor the posts leave out empty pillars of space on the sides! Let's use all of it, I'd say!
Open Sans looks fine as the message body, but I hate the way it looks (and renders) at header sizes and bold weights. I can deal with Helvetica as a body if we have to use one font across the site (which we don't, but I don't know how much mucking around they want to do in the CSS).
OSes without Helvetica, like Windows, usually sub in Arial. If you don't care about fonts you might not notice the difference.
Whichever wins, you also need to make the padding in posts even on all sides. Currently it's all kinds of different on each side, and it's hurting me.
Bad:
Good (quick and dirty edit, but you get it):
Cannot unsee...
Also, #1 for me. I like the font size and don't think spacing is necessary with the striping. But can we please change the font in the Reply box to match whatever the community chooses? It's driving me crazy.
Haha, I'm on a Mac and voted for the Open Sans w/ gaps. I'm fine with either...but I want those sexy gaps.
How about the font for the reply box/editor? It appears to be serif :p
Yeah on mobile it's serif for some reason. I'm just tired of staring at Helvetica at this point, I'd like something different and I really admire open sans. I've been using Rubik, a google font a lot lately in my design work and I love it.
But this poll is also about fonts. So it's a bit misleading to have a font there that many people won't get.
I have a request: please change the coloring of thread titles from gray to a darker shade or color
It's not a HUGE deal but it strains my vision a bit... Thanks
It's not a HUGE deal but it strains my vision a bit... Thanks
Couple it with higher contrast between page background color and post background color, and its perfect. 2-4px spacing should be just right.If there's spacing at all I'd prefer it to be really tiny, like 2px. I guess it depends on your eyesight whether you think it's even worth it at that point, though. I could live with any of them.
Spaces between posts and helvetica. I don't know why, but I really want spacing. Or if we didn't do spacing, I'd want the alternating backround colors to be a bit more visible. Right now everything blends together too much.
That said, reading some of the posts about expanding Sans might be good too.
That said, reading some of the posts about expanding Sans might be good too.
Yeah. Don't even have to make the avatars smaller, just tighten everything up a bit. Something like:
Before (current):
After:
