On Mon, Feb 17, 2014 at 12:38 PM, Steven Walling steven.walling@gmail.comwrote:
Sacrificing the readability and beauty of content for most users because there is no universally perfect solution is the kind of hard-line approach that limits the reach of FOSS, and ultimately undermines our goal of making something the entire world can use and enjoy.
I need to challenge the assertion that this is about most users. Here's my understanding of the status quo: for prose, we currently specify the neutral and non-descript "sans-serif". This results in the following fonts on the default install on these platforms if I've done my homework correctly: * MS Windows: Arial(?) * Mac: Helvetica * Ubuntu/Firefox: DejaVu Sans (presumably other Linux variants are similar) * Ubuntu/Chrome: Liberation Sans * Android: Roboto * iOS: Helvetica(?)
Note that the differences between Firefox and Chrome on Linux seem to stem from Firefox using the OS standard font resolution mechanism, and Chrome having a built-in heuristic that seems to be very heavily biased toward Liberation Sans.
Under the new "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif font stack, we get: * MS Windows: Arial(?) * Mac: Helvetica Neue * Ubuntu/Firefox: Nimbus Sans L (Helvetica substitute) * Ubuntu/Chrome: Liberation Sans (Helvetica and Arial substitute) * Android: Roboto * iOS: Helvetica Neue
This doesn't seem like a satisfying leap forward, given the level of disruption. * By our numbers[1], a plurality of our users are using MS Windows still (and probably a majority of those using the desktop site). They got Arial before, and they get Arial now.[2] The only way they improve their experience is to buy Helvetica Neue or buy a product that includes Helvetica Neue. Moreover, it's quite possible that MS Windows users will get a crappy experience with Helvetica if they have an old Type 1 version of it installed on their system.[3] * It looks like this causes shift from Helvetica and Helvetica Neue on Mac and iOS, which would seem to be to be pretty subtle. How big is the difference on the site? I don't have access to a Mac at home, so I can't see the difference myself, but the available screenshots don't present a noticeable difference to me. * If cross-platform consistency is the goal, I think this misses the mark. In particular, Android would still be using Roboto, which has quite different metrics than the Helvetica/Arial set of fonts. Additionally, we still end up with a difference between our two most popular Linux browsers, which while not as large as before, still seems unnecessary.
Here is what seems to be a reasonably well-researched article where the author has clearly put a lot of thought into the cross-platform experience, with the added bonus that it proposes use of free (libre) fonts: http://www.grputland.com/2013/11/multiplatform-helvetica-like-font-stack.htm...
tl;dr: His stack still lists HelveticaNeue as the first font, but proposes Arimo as a web font which may well look better on MS Windows. Arimo ships with ChromeOS.
I believe it is worth more research on replacements for free and better alternatives to Arial, because it would seem to me that it's not hard to do better. While it's unlikely that most MS Windows users will install Arimo, it sends a way better message if we can say "to make your Wikipedia reading experience better, download and install the free font Arimo" than it does to say "to make your Wikipedia experience better, please purchase Helvetica Neue for the low low price of $29.95". Furthermore, it may be worth it to try out the web font mechanism, and we might even be able to talk Mozilla and/or Google into shipping a free font or two with the browser so as to get some real install penetration with these fonts.
In general, it feels as though this iteration is centered around only making the experience for Apple products better, while trying not to break the experience on other platforms, which feels like a low bar. It's not entirely clear how much hands-on effort the User Experience team has put into Windows, Android tablets, ChromeOS, or other Linux desktops, or what the team's goals are for those platforms. The fact that much of the rationale for the new design centers around greater use of Helvetica Neue specifically (which is not free, and is only available to a minority of our users) is annoying to me, and that seems to be where a lot of the frustration from others comes from as well.
Rob
[1] http://stats.wikimedia.org/wikimedia/squids/SquidReportOperatingSystems.htm [2] I don't have a modern system with Windows 7 or 8 on it, so I don't know if they've switched to Segoe as the default. If so, we may be making an unintentional downgrade to Arial with our new choice. [3] http://stackoverflow.com/questions/15011653/internet-explorer-automatically-...
On Mon, Feb 17, 2014 at 4:42 PM, Rob Lanphier robla@wikimedia.org wrote:
tl;dr: His stack still lists HelveticaNeue as the first font, but proposes Arimo as a web font which may well look better on MS Windows. Arimo ships with ChromeOS.
So, what would be the downside of listing a font like Arimo for sans-serif and Libertine for serif first in the stack? While not affecting the reader experience for a significant number of users, it would still be a symbolic expression of a preference for freely licensed fonts, and a conscious choice of a beautiful font for readers that have installed it.
There may be practical and aesthetic arguments against these or other specific free fonts; if so, it would be good to hear those arguments spelled out. I do agree that if "Helvetica Neue" is only installed on Macs and costs $30 for everyone, it's a pretty idiosyncratic choice as a primary font to specify. :-) Surely if the font requires downloading on the majority of platforms anyway, we may as well specify a free one before the non-free one.
As for webfonts, given the ULS experience I'd be very leery of the performance impact, both in terms of delivering the font and any unintended re-rendering flashes.
Erik
On Mon, Feb 17, 2014 at 4:58 PM, Erik Moeller erik@wikimedia.org wrote:
So, what would be the downside of listing a font like Arimo for sans-serif and Libertine for serif first in the stack? While not affecting the reader experience for a significant number of users, it would still be a symbolic expression of a preference for freely licensed fonts, and a conscious choice of a beautiful font for readers that have installed it.
We basically tried the equivalent of this (placing relatively free fonts unknown on most platforms first) which Kaldari talked about previously. Ultimately that kind of declaration is useless for the vast majority of users and we got very specific negative feedback about it on the Talk page. These fonts are ignored by most systems when placed first or when placed later in the stack. Systems match the first font they recognize, so using something they don't recognize or putting it later is a largely just feel-good measure.
The whole Arimo/Arial conundrum is largely a matter of the fact that Windows users simply do not have a Helvetica-like font available on most versions which is better than Arial, warts and all. Again, the best solution is to deliver a webfont, which most people with good design sense are doing these days, and we can't yet.
On Mon, Feb 17, 2014 at 7:19 PM, Steven Walling swalling@wikimedia.org wrote:
We basically tried the equivalent of this (placing relatively free fonts unknown on most platforms first) which Kaldari talked about previously. Ultimately that kind of declaration is useless for the vast majority of users and we got very specific negative feedback about it on the Talk page.
(..)
These fonts are ignored by most systems when placed first or when placed later in the stack. Systems match the first font they recognize, so using something they don't recognize or putting it later is a largely just feel-good measure.
Thanks Steven et al. It's clear from https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/#/c/108155/ that everyone involved is trying to do the right thing. :)
I agree with Rob's follow-up question here --
https://www.mediawiki.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Typography_refresh&diff...
i.e. we should document our assessment of freely licensed fonts and any associated design or rendering issues. Even if specifying alternative fonts in the stack _is_ largely symbolic, to the extent that we can express our values through our choices here without negative side effects, we should.
Erik
Rob,
I think you should cross-post all or most of that on Talk:Typography Refresh, since not all the designers are actually on Wikitech. A few thoughts of my own...
On Mon, Feb 17, 2014 at 4:42 PM, Rob Lanphier robla@wikimedia.org wrote:
This doesn't seem like a satisfying leap forward, given the level of disruption.
1). I don't really see how there is or will be actually any serious "level of disruption" for users beyond a temporary shock of an incremental change. Right now what I see internal MediaWiki community drama over changing a longstanding precedent, which is not the same thing. I don't know about you, but I care ultimately what happens for users of MediaWiki/Wikimedia not whether people want to fight about something on a mailing list. If that's the measure of disruptive, then almost everything we do is extremely disruptive.
As you say, it's not a hugely radical chance, and so far overall use of the beta has stayed steady or grown over time. Millions more mobile readers have been happily using almost the exact same font family settings for all our projects for more than a year. (That's the basic consistency we're talking about.) Feedback from most end users on the Talk page has been positive or neutral the base content font family, or has been more concerned with other details (like serif headings).
People here mostly seem to have debated two points: "are violating our free software requirement?" (unequivocal answer: no) and "is this better?"
The answer to that is partially a matter of personal taste, which is why everyone who wants is still free to customize the skin however they like. Typography is one of those elements of design that everyone has a strong opinion about, even if they don't really grasp fundamentals of the domain. The second part of the answer seems to me that the UX team, as the experts in this, needs to do a better job of documenting their research and the feedback so far from end users. That is why I recommended we hold back on pushing the beta feature to Vector for now.
2). I think Jared and others hinted that the most satisfying leap forward would be delivering free/open webfonts to all users. Ideally, it would even be something custom designed for Wikimedia. However, that's just not a realistic bet right now, and we have reason to tread cautiously as Erik said.
3). Last and most important, you listed main body font family, but ignored the other changes that are a part of the Typography Refresh as housed in Extension:VectorBeta. A large part of what makes typography good or bad is not simply the font family you choose. It's how you set it -- the visual context -- that matters just as much. Ultimately arguing about that one line of CSS is not really a discussion about the actual experience on our sites.