Font change?

[Itwasntevenblackpudding]

Have you done something to the font today MN?

Mine has suddenly changed for all MN posts (all other sites are fine and unchanged).

Headers/footers and buttons appear the same but the active lists and all of the posts are suddenly showing in a different font.

Font looks the same for me (desktop Safari).

I thought it was just me.

Chrome on Android here.

iPhone 12, latest os, safari

Your new font is probably in breech of web accessibility standards, and cant imagine why anyone picked it.

Seconding it also makes lines in comments to long, which goes against ease of reading guidelines, which is not only an accesibility issue, but doesn't follow newspaper guidelines for best display.

If you use a standard font that all browsers recognise wouldn't that be best.

Surely MN is about getting information shared, not style over substance?

PS Didn't you used to have the date and time of latest contributions on forum indexes. Now you never know if there is new info or not, and means less likely to read as time is wasted going to the end of a thread only to find out there is nothing new on it. Thanks

@LilyMumsnet

Why ask me what device and browser I'm using (laptop and edge - not that it matters) and then come back and say you have deliberately changed the font?

the one we were using was causing performance issues
The one that has been the same ever since I joined MN years ago? That one?

@ZeroFuchsGiven Yes, doesn't it look horrible?

Sorry OP, that was my mistake!

@LilyMumsnet

Fair enough! Thank you for responding.

No likey.

yup same here looks like calibri light compared to normal calibri IYSWIM and really hard to see. not very accessible

On my iPhone se screen it’s actually easier to see than the previous font.

Very hard to read. Please change to something better or even revert to the old one.

I was wondering this too, thought I may have accidentally changed my settings somehow. It's really really hard to read, I use the web page on a desktop. Think I'm actually going to have to stop using it unless they change it back

I wonder why there’s such a difference between users being to read easily or not.

I prefer it on my phone. Much easier to read.

‘able to’

It looks the same as usual on my phone.

On a chrome browser on my laptop screen it looks like something that has been printed when the ink is running out - thinner text and therefore harder to make out than the bolded text, which is the same font but not hard to read.

On my phone it looks thicker!
using safari.
Will try chrome.

Same here and it's making it harder for me to read.

The difference in reading websites on a mobile phone and a computer screen is on the problems web designers are grappling with. Its hard to have one design without putting one method ahead of the other.

Facebook for instance, but maybe they have the resources to do this, have a different url for mobile phone readers than the standard url for computer users, which I take to mean they are implementing different designs.

But this font is too small, too grey for computer screens.

Harder to read. Please revert back.

My thoughts exactly as well as WTF?!

Its very spidery now.

I have had to enlarge my screen to read it comfortably.

Are you going to do anything about this.

It shouldn't be necessary tohave to change the display size on a monitor for one web site.

The typeface that has been chosen is too small and too grey.

Not only does it not meet web acessibility strandards but it also goes against guidance for line length to aid ease of reading.

This is called disability discrimination.

Why are you sticking with it?

Either you should get your money back from who ever you paid to do this, or get them to correct their faults.

Hi all

Thank you for the feedback - the colours meet WCAG 2.1 guidelines AAA in the majority of areas. Our font sizing abides by minimum browser guidelines.

Our font sizing abides by minimum browser guidelines.

Well that's a clear way of saying that we dont think it is worth bothering about to make our web site properly inclusive.

Hey @IwantToRetire, 🙂

Just thought i’d jump in on this one so I can expand on the above.

So all browsers set out a guideline of what is the smallest (minimum) font you should be using when developing for different browsers and mobile vs web. So for example in Google’s material design guide, Google Chrome is 16px. We also receive reports of any accessibility issues from Google which we solve as they come in. These flag any areas in which the font and colour combinations might be an accessibility risk.

When using colours, we use WCAG 2.1 guidelines and try to meet AAA rating in the majority of areas. In the few areas we don’t meet AAA rating (contrast rating of 7), we meet AA rating (contrast rating of 3.5).

If you have any questions about this let me know 🙂

Your post which has a blue background illustrates the point perfectly. In choosing such a spindly type face and what seems to be gray rather than black makes reading extremely difficult.

And if as you say you have set the base font to 16px, why is yours the only web site where I feel the need to enlarge the ratio on my browser. Which by the way doesn't help as the font is so thin an spindly means that enlarge it is as lacking in definition as a spiders web.

And again, if it is 16px, why are there now many more words in each line of a comment box, which also goes against ease of reading guidelines?

In fact for ease of reading I actually narrow the width of my browser, so each thread looks more like a newspaper column and means the thin spindly font looks less weak and indistinct.

But I should have to do that. Having set my browser to meet my needs I should be able to go from one web site to another without having to faff around because someone chose an inappropriate typeface.