Why You Should Stop Using Times New Roman (Research Explains)

Many claim that Times New Roman is the most readable or accessible font – but is this really true? We dive into font research to explore the accessibility of Arial, Comic Sans, and fonts like Open Dyslexic. Is there one that stands out from the rest? Or is the world of typefaces as subjective as our opinions about design?


A big thanks to Paola Kassa and Matthew Shifrin for their contributions to this episode.
Created & produced by Vanessa Hill. Edited by Dominique Taylor. Research by Hannah Thomasy

REFERENCES 📚

READABILITY
Emotional content and colours:

ACCESSIBILITY

FONT HISTORY

[braincraft]

The comments are going to be diabolical with everyone’s font opinions and I am so here for it 🍿

Thanks for understanding while I took a little break, I’m back with monthly uploads!

[ukrdima]

Don't care about serif vs sans-serif. The only thing is for sure: fonts where uppercase "i" and lowercase "L" look the same should be banned by the Geneva human rights convention.

[katm]

I'm a chemistry teacher. The MOST important aspect of a font for me is having I and l look VERY different. Identifying Cl (chlorine) rather than CI (carbon and iodine) is very difficult for beginning students without a clear font.

[jtc]

TIMES NEW ROMAN makes a difference between the upper-case "I" and the lower-case "l"

[NikolausUndRupprecht]

There is one aspect that was totally missed as an argument in this video: Times covers almost any character there is. When you are writing academic texts, Latin characters get constantly interrupted with Greek characters, the whole thing needs to be in harmony with mathematical expressions and there are also many author names with strange diacritical marks. Times has you covered. There is almost nothing that cannot be typeset in Times. Sans serif fonts on the other hand … well, that is an adventures journey along all those empty spaces in the character table that aren’t occupied. You may think of Times as boring typeface, but it is nevertheless the most advanced typeface in terms of available characters.

[awesomenessiscool]

Clearly the best font for both reading speed and legibility is wingdings

[tematrixmayhem]

You forgot one important fact. Times new roman was created to use less ink while printing to reduce printing cost in newspapers.

[graemebdh]

So much this didn’t cover and one major aspect is space. Designed for newspapers Times New Roman takes up less space than other fonts — and less sheets of paper when printing out dissertations — or don’t people do that any more!

[hangarflying]

You overlooked the entire core of the discussion: the medium upon which the font is going to be read—screen or print.

I would hazard a guess that the reason your research paper was asked to be reformatted to TNR is because it was likely to be printed out at some point.

[EulerFink]

I only hate fonts where "I" and "l" are equal.
The first is an uppercase "i", the second a lowercase "L".
So yeah, I hate the comment section font.

[besmart]

At least we can all agree that papyrus belongs nowhere

[greggrobinson]

I often change fonts when I'm writing, just for variation. Of course I reformat the whole piece in a legit font once I'm done, but changing fonts can subtly change my mood and style and give me fresh eyes.

[migrantfamily]

In the assessment of niche fonts, did anyone factor in familiarity as a factor? Intuitively, a familiar font will be more conducive to quick and correct recognition than an unfamiliar font, however well designed, will.

[mrlowkey]

I had a physics professor in college who exclusively used Comic Sans

[nickbarton]

These days, I'm happy just to receive email with punctuation, paragraphs and without spelling mistakes.

[garvingaskin]

My preference is Verdana because 1, uppercase "I" and lower case "l" are all sufficiently different.

[antonina]

2:14
Sounds like an idea for the next Pixar movie. What if letters had feelings? What if fonts had feelings?
When will we hear the story of the letter I, so mistreated by the Pixar lamp?

[berlineczka]

As an academic, I'd like to add a few more reasons why TNR is so prevalent:
1) It is basically universal. There are special signs for basically every langauge, so your citation of e.g. Dvořák wouldn't suddenly have the ř and á in a different font than the rest of the word. It will also work on any computer with any writing software, so it is universally accessible, no matter the tongue your computer operates in.
2) It is narrow, so it saves space. My PhD thesis was 330 pages in Calibri and 293 in TNR. Just by switching the font I saved on printing a few hunded pages. The same goes for students. Maybe you safe a page or two on your seminar paper, but it will add up.
3) Because it is so prevalent, it became the standard. I can usually judge just by the lenght of the paper if it is the required word count, if it is in TNR.
4) I also read it fast, because I am used to read it, so it is familiar. It is not my favourite font, but it is a font I know well, so I read it fast. And since I have a lot of papers to grade, every second counts.

[alanwilson]

I write a lot of technical papers, and distinction between I, l, and 1 is important, also the distinction between O and 0. Serif fonts like TNR are better for the distinction.

[JB-tdei]

Remember the early 1990’s when MS Word first came out and every flyer looked like a ransom letter because people used a different font for every line? 🤣🤣