[games_access] Font type and sizes in games

[AudioGames.net]

Yes, I got it on camera! It was in the first session, with the asian girl 
explaining difficulties with font size (especially with specific language 
characters: chinese, japanese, etc.). Good you remembered, I completely 
forgot! I will try to make an mp3 of our session from my video recording 
tomorrow at work...
Btw: did anyone find the recordings of the game accessibility tutorial day? 
I browsed http://store.cmpgame.com/category.php?cat=50&skin=gdcradio but 
could not find them :(




----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Reid Kimball" <rkimball at gmail.com>
To: "IGDA Games Accessibility SIG Mailing List" <games_access at igda.org>
Sent: Tuesday, June 13, 2006 6:15 PM
Subject: Re: [games_access] Font type and sizes in games


> Didn't we come up with a similar list at one of the GDC round tables?
> I remember we talked about ways to zoom on text that current games
> could use. If we can dig up the list (if someone took notes) it might
> be helpful to pass it along.
>
> -Reid
>
> On 6/12/06, AudioGames.net <richard at audiogames.net> wrote:
>> Hi,
>>
>> *quote*
>> Just to amuse - I used to work for a college that had Comic Sans as the
>> standard font - we had to type every document in Comic Sans, until we got 
>> a
>> visit from the RNIB... Apparently Comic Sans is one of the worst fonts 
>> for
>> anyone who isn't dyslexic!
>> *quote end*
>>
>> There have been many groups like this one: 
>> http://bancomicsans.com/home.html
>> that say that Comic Sans is THE worst font ever - but then from an 
>> aestethic
>> point of view only :)
>>
>> I have no real experience with a certain font being more accessible than
>> normal but I guess that indeed some fonts are easier to read than others. 
>> I
>> know some accessibility institutions would rather like to ban the 
>> "Italic"
>> option since this makes an otherwise very readable font less readable 
>> (same
>> with bold, actually). I do know some fonts have been designed with a 
>> minimal
>> size and should not be used smaller. For example, Times New Roman was not
>> designed to be used smaller than 12 pt.
>>
>> *quote*
>> ...and to not fix any sizes (so people can scale them up or down easily 
>> with
>> their browser / accessibility software).
>> *quote end*
>> *quote*
>> Re-scalable fonts will be a tough one I think... But what do you think?
>> *quote end*
>>
>> Barrie, you kind of said it already. The whole thing with "scalable
>> fonts"-thing is something that comes from a browser-environment. In my
>> opinion. In modern webdesign, webdesigners not only focus on "scalable
>> fonts" (using em instead of pt), but on scalable websites, meaning that 
>> when
>> the fonts are scaled, that the website's css takes on a new design that 
>> best
>> fits the fonts size. This will keep floating DIV's from overlapping, for
>> instance.
>>
>> So if we're thinking about scalable fonts in a game, why not think about
>> having a scalable game (to avoid the text covering everything)? I guess
>> there are quite a few problems with this though .... ;)
>>
>> In in case, there are often other options as well. What is the problem 
>> we're
>> trying to solve with a too-little font size? That the text is too small 
>> to
>> read for some? Why not add a feature that when the mouse hoovers over the
>> text, that the text enlarges itsself automatically a bit (or, without the
>> mouse, using a keyboard shortcut?). Why not use sound to make the text
>> audible? Etc. etc.
>>
>> Just some thoughts...
>>
>> Greets,
>>
>> Richard
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> ----- Original Message -----
>> From: "Barrie Ellis" <barrie.ellis at oneswitch.org.uk>
>> To: "IGDA GA mailing list" <games_access at igda.org>
>> Sent: Monday, June 12, 2006 9:36 AM
>> Subject: [games_access] Font type and sizes in games
>>
>>
>> > Wondering if people have any thoughts, links to preferred fonts in 
>> > games,
>> > after this thread:
>> >
>> >
>> > http://www.retroremakes.com/forum2/showthread.php?t=6608&page=2
>> >
>> > "
>> >
>> > Also we were banned from mixing colours in text, because that made 
>> > things
>> > even worse...
>> >
>> > So the moral seems to be make the menu colours and text in games based 
>> > on
>> > the user's Windows defaults or something. Then they will automatically 
>> > get
>> > the right mix of colours and characters... I think... "
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> > I mentioned that web-wise, the RNIB (Royal National Institute of the
>> > Blind) have "verdana, arial, helvetica, sans-serif" as their order of
>> > preference on their web-site, as to how it should display the bulk of
>> > text.
>> >
>> > Quite a few people spoke of Comic Sans, mentioning that it may be of
>> > benefit to dyslexics - but there was some dispute. I personally don't 
>> > like
>> > it, but that's from an aesthetic stand point.
>> >
>> > Re-scalable fonts will be a tough one I think... But what do you think?
>> >
>> >
>> > Barrie
>> > www.OneSwitch.org.uk
>> >
>> >
>> > _______________________________________________
>> > games_access mailing list
>> > games_access at igda.org
>> > http://seven.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/games_access
>>
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