SubscribeAllow me to ruffle some web designers’ feathers. Helvetica Neue is bad for web usability. On Windows, in Firefox and Internet Explorer, it is painfully illegible. Here is a sample of Helvetica Neue text rendered in Firefox on Windows 7, compared to Arial:
When designers felt that Arial was overused, they flocked to Helvetica, until they overused it as well, and now they currently flock to Helvetica Neue. Unfortunately, on Windows machines with the Helvetica Neue font installed, it renders very poorly in Firefox and Internet Explorer. Below are some popular brands’ websites as viewed in Firefox on Windows 7 (click a thumbnail to see the screenshot):
Compare the above screenshots to the ones below, where each site has had its font changed to Arial via Firebug:
Some possible solutions for this usability issue:
- Designers stop using Helvetica Neue, until modern browsers on all major OSes render it legibly.
- Developers implement cross-OS and cross-browser stylesheets for setting a different font, depending on the OS/browser combination. (I realize this would be ridiculous, but it’s still a possible solution)
- Firefox and Internet Explorer start smoothing fonts, similar to Safari
- Windows fixes its font rendering issues (probably the best solution, in order to prevent this from happening in other interfaces, but also the least likely to happen)
Well, that’s my 2 cents on the topic of Helvetica Neue. Carry on.