
How Typography Can Save Your Life - Tomte
https://www.propublica.org/article/how-typography-can-save-your-life
======
anexprogrammer
Reading about Clearview and traffic signs reminds me of the efforts of
designers Margaret Calvert and Jock Kinneir. They standardised fonts and sign
designs for the UK in the late 50s just as the rollout of motorways was being
planned.

They came up with two fonts expressly for ease of readability that stand the
test of time remarkably well.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transport_%28typeface%29](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transport_%28typeface%29)
and Motorway (font).

They also standardised many of the pictograms for use on warnings, colour
schemes and iconography. They also did the rail and airport alphabets.

[http://designmuseum.org/designers/jock-kinneir-and-
margaret-...](http://designmuseum.org/designers/jock-kinneir-and-margaret-
calvert)

~~~
M2Ys4U
This was the first thing I thought of as well.

The UK government's Traffic Sign Manual[0], and in particular Chapter 7 (The
Design of Traffic Signs)[1] are bizarrely interesting reads. Maybe that says
something more about me than the documents though...

[0] [https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/traffic-signs-
man...](https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/traffic-signs-manual)

[1]
[https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachm...](https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/203668/traffic-
signs-manual-chapter-07.pdf)

------
kkennis
For large, easily readable lettering - subway stations, highway signs,
billboards etc. - I've found the best combination of readability and
pleasantness is Avenir
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avenir_(typeface)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avenir_\(typeface\))

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gaur
What about all the alphabets, abjads, etc. that don't have separate majuscule
and minuscule letters? Are people in China or India or Israel dropping dead
because they can't pick out important information fast enough from blocks of
text?

~~~
wibr
The difference is that most people are not used to reading all caps, whereas
for example people in China use blocks of characters all the time and can
parse them quickly. In addition, now you can just skim the report quickly to
see if there is anything BIG coming.

~~~
kqr
The ability to more quickly recognise shapes when they are visually distinct,
compared to when they are visually similar, is not a cultural or habitual
thing. I'm sure a Chinese person can read Chinese faster than I can, but that
doesn't mean they wouldn't benefit from more visually distinct characters.

~~~
Kronopath
In my opinion, this is actually one of the benefits of simplified characters
as compared to traditional. They have much more varied shapes and as such are
easier to tell apart at a glance: compare characters like:

双飞机会带着几个人

to:

雙飛機會帶著幾個人

Both are actually the same set of characters, but the first one seems much
easier to distinguish at a glance. I'd suspect this would Be true even for
native speakers/readers, though I've never seen a study on it.

~~~
eru
Seems definitely plausible given how Chrome renders these on my computer.

I wonder how this plays out handwritten on paper?

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phodo
This notion of glance time (in the video) reminds me of the hidden layers in a
neural network. When you see visualizations of these hidden layers (check out
various deep learning videos...), it's indeed a model for glances at different
layers of abstractions / time intervals.

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sz4kerto
> Look familiar? Blame typewriters and stubborn lawyers

(Under an excerpt from a legal disclaimer.) I think legal disclaimers are
written in all caps exactly to make understanding more difficult, while still
conveying the 'I told you' feeling.

~~~
Tomte
No, they are written in all caps, because lawyers think that it is a necessary
component of the "conspicuous" requirement of the Uniform Commercial Code, and
nobody feels strongly enough about it to really test it in court and risk
damaging oneself.

~~~
sundvor
I thought they were written in all caps to lower the probability of anyone
actually ever reading them.

~~~
Tomte
You not only simply repeated what the grandparent was saying, but you also
didn't engage what I wrote in any meaningful way.

This kind of "cute" comments is killing this site.

~~~
sundvor
Fair point; my apologies.

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unexistance
On NASA's recommendation, I'm at loss here

> When specifying font height, or accessing graphs to determine the size of a
> lower-case character, the distinction between “x” height and overall size
> should be made.

> As a general recommendation, the “x” height of a font used for important
> flight-deck documentation should not be below 0.10 inch.

> The recommended height-to-width ratio of a font that is viewed in front of
> the observer is 5:3.

> The vertical spacing between lines should not be smaller than 25–33% of the
> overall size of the font.

> The horizontal spacing between characters should be 25% of the overall size
> and not less than one stroke width.

~~~
phlo
Those seem like very reasonable points. Are you confused by the terminology?
If so:

\- "x" height refers to the height of the mean line of lowercase letters, e.g.
the lowercase letter "x". Ascenders (on letters like l, t, k) will exceed this
height.

\- height-to-width: seems straightforward: wider fonts may often look more
modern (see e.g. the Eurostile vs. Frutiger comparison in the article), but
are harder to read.

\- spacing: allow for enough whitespace vertically and horizontally. This,
again, improves legibility compared to condensed fonts.

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parennoob
The article talks about how Terms and Conditions are in all-caps due to "legal
traditions". Is the all-caps a legal requirements? Otherwise, I am going to go
with the assumption that Apple and other companies put their Terms and
Conditions in all-caps _precisely because it makes them hard to read._

Apple have enough experience in typography and certainly haven't bowed to
tradition in that arena. There is no reason they would suddenly start doing it
for T&C unless it suited them.

~~~
zyxley
> Is the all-caps a legal requirements?

No.

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louprado
Not sure these Nasa guidelines are current.

>> Sans-serif fonts are usually more legible than fonts with serifs.

>>Avoid using dot matrix print for critical flight-deck documentation.

The serifs on fonts make it easier to distinguish letters and ligatures. It is
the reason nearly every textbook and journal article is written in serif
fonts.

Because serif fonts dominate in print, you eventually train mostly on this
font and therefore you can read text in a serif font faster than sans-serif.

On a dot-matrix printer (see Nasa guidelines) and low resolution monitors,
sans-serif is a better choice. But that era has ended.

Serif fonts are dead, long live serif fonts.

~~~
eru
Funny enough, I read your comment in the default sans-serif font of HN on my
Apple `retina' display..

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SeanDav
Arguably Caps letters are more visually distinct. From a distance lower case
"e", "a", "o" can be a lot more difficult to tell apart then "E", "A" and "O".
Not to mention of course the classic problem of mix case "I", "l", "1"

Of course, depending on font we have issues with all caps as well, especially
when mixed with numbers: "Z" and "2", "O" and "0", "Q" and "O" etc.

Typography is not an easy subject.

~~~
hammock
_> Arguably Caps letters are more visually distinct_

I would say this is true and for one line or two lines only. For blocks of
text, readability is improved by a mixture of upper and lowercase.

~~~
taeric
How much of this is just a learned behavior?

As an example, it is dead easy to spot common speed limit signs, mainly
because there are so few speed limits. Even when my sight was failing, I could
make out the speed limits at a distance with little trouble. Not because of
some magic of the text, but simply from familiarity.

So, in an age where most of what we read is mixed case, it makes intuitive
sense that we would be better at reading it. I fully realize intuitive sense
doesn't translate to an explanation and is why I'm asking the question.

