As working from home increases due to COVID-19, and face to face meetings are decreasing, more and more of employees’ time is now spent in front of a computer screen. In light of this and March is Workplace Eye Wellness Month, research has identified the fonts that could be putting the eye health of on-screen workers at risk.
Feel Good Contacts have discovered what fonts are the easiest for our eyes to read.
The full rankings are below, with the fonts ranked from best to worst for your eyes:
1. Google – Arial
2. Yahoo – Helvetica Neue
3. The Lad Bible – Helvetica Neue
4. Netflix – Helvetica Neue
5. Twitter – System UI
6. Instagram – System UI
7. Facebook – Segoe UI
8. Office – Segoe UI
9. YouTube – Roboto
10. Amazon – Amazon Ember
11. BBC Online – Reith Sans
12. Reddit – IBMPlexSans
13. Twitch TV – Roobert
14. NHS Online – Frutiger W01
15. The Guardian – Guardian Egyptian Web
16. Wikipedia – Sans Serif
Health experts believe there is a clear link between excessive screen time and myopia (short-sightedness).
Nimesh Shah, marketing director at Feel Good Contacts said:
Serif fonts which have tails and flicks on the ends of each letter, can often be more difficult to read due it being hard to distinguish between the letters. Times New Roman was once seen as a default font, but it is used less and less these days, and perhaps this is a reason for its decline.
Sans serif fonts such as Arial and Helvetica are simpler and more streamlined fonts making them ideal for websites and readability on screen and we have even seen Google and Microsoft develop their own typefaces in recent years to create better experiences for users.
The spacing between letters, also known as kerning, is a big consideration, the bigger the space, the easier it is to read the text. Bold lines, nice curves and a clear colour that sits on a contrasting background are all essentials. Where The Guardian and Wikipedia are going wrong is that a Serif font fails to adhere to a lot of these rules and therefore can potentially place strain on the eyes when we read.
The research also found that Reddit, BBC Online and Amazon could all be causing a strain on our eyes as we browse, while LadBible, Netflix and Yahoo are all much easier on the eye.
Darius is the editor of HRreview. He has previously worked as a finance reporter for the Daily Express. He studied his journalism masters at Press Association Training and graduated from the University of York with a degree in History.
