On 15/04/14 01:54, Steven Walling wrote:
On Mon, Apr 14, 2014 at 3:55 PM, Isarra Yos
<zhorishna(a)gmail.com> wrote:
Deemed better? Better how? But that's what
I'm saying - if the
configuration is optimised for dejavu sans, nimbus won't be better at all
even if it is a better-engineered font (doubtful, though, it being an arial
clone from what I understand). Letters will be too close together, sizes
and hinting will be off, and that's not even going into the whole rabbit
hole of messing with what people are used to, which seems to be the single
biggest determining factor as to what they find easy to read once the
basics are covered...
Design involves making choices on the behalf of users. What color should
these buttons be? Where should this text go? We can't design for every
person's individual taste. We have to design for what we think will do the
most functional good for the most people. This is why the vast majority of
sites a user will visit on a regular basis do not simply leave typography
up to the browser defaults. Even MediaWiki, by choosing "sans-serif" for
many years, forced users who might want everything to be serif to not get
that.
Just because something is common doesn't mean it's a good idea. It may
well be. But it may also just be something someone did that everyone
else decided to copy, rather like big hair and leg warmers.
Don't get me wrong, big hair can be awesome, but the maintenance, man,
that's just killer. Looks ain't everything, and at some point you wind
up just wanting your hair back.
To be honest Isarra, the number of emails and on-wiki
comments you have
written with this exact same question is kind of mindblowing. You ask it
every time the subject comes up, regardless of which particular font stack
is under discussion or who is talking about it. No amount of detailed
explanation ever seems enough for you.
On Wikitech-l, Design-l, and in the extensive documentation on
mediawiki.org,
people have laid out highly objective rationales for why each font and the
associated type sizing, spacing, leading, and more were selected to be
harmonious with each other. If your objection is not to the particular
choices made, but to the fact that we're making specific design choices at
all, I don't really think there's much point in talking about it more.
Steven
So what is the explanation, then? What was so wrong with the defaults?
Do you have any links?
-I