On Wed, Mar 5, 2014 at 2:51 PM, Max <max(a)koehler-kn.de> wrote:
*> If there is a very specific 'right
font', why aren't we using it as a
webfont?*
I think webfonts are amazing, and we should definitely use them. However,
even with webfonts using a font stack is a good idea. What if the user has
an old browser that doesn't support webfonts? What if the user chose not to
download font files to save bandwidth? In those cases we still want to do
our best to ensure a decent reading experience, which isn't always possible
with the default fallbacks.
Our font stack would look something like this:
'Fancy pants Webfont Pro', DejaVu Sans, Arial, sans-serif;
The answer to "why aren't we using webfonts" is that we're not resourced
to
implement a homegrown delivery system that scales to Wikimedia-size traffic
without a performance hit. Previous webfonts delivery that we've done for
localization and accessibility has been rocky on the performance front, and
it's not realistic for us right now to implement a system that delivers
webfonts for all text to all users. (And we can't rely on TypeKit or Google
webfonts system like many other sites).
--
Steven Walling,
Product Manager
https://wikimediafoundation.org/