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ClearType improves resolution by turning on and off each of the colors in the pixel. Before ClearType, the entire pixel had to be turned on and off. This tighter control over the red, blue, and green fractions of a pixel can increase the clarity on an LCD monitor by up to 300 percent.
You can use either type of monitor, but you'll get the most benefit when you use an LCD monitor. This is because ClearType was made to work with LCD technology, which keeps specific pixels in specific places. ClearType takes advantage of pixels being in a fixed place by turning fractions of the pixel on and off. A CRT monitor doesn’t work in the same way with ClearType because it uses an electron beam to excite, or move around, pixels, instead of keeping them stationary.
Still, you might experience some improvement in clarity when you use ClearType on a CRT monitor because ClearType smooths jagged font edges. This is called antialiasing. Optimized Windows fonts for ClearType include: Constantia, Cambria, Corbel, Candara, Calibri, and Consolas.
ClearType improves resolution by turning on and off each of the colors in the pixel. Before ClearType, the entire pixel had to be turned on and off. This tighter control over the red, blue, and green fractions of a pixel can increase the clarity on an LCD monitor by up to 300 percent. You can use either type of monitor, but you'll get the most benefit when you use an LCD monitor. This is because ClearType was made to work with LCD technology, which keeps specific pixels in specific places. ClearType takes advantage of pixels being in a fixed place by turning fractions of the pixel on and off. A CRT monitor doesn’t work in the same way with ClearType because it uses an electron beam to excite, or move around, pixels, instead of keeping them stationary.
Still, you might experience some improvement in clarity when you use ClearType on a CRT monitor because ClearType smooths jagged font edges. This is called antialiasing. Optimized Windows fonts for ClearType include: ''Constantia, Cambria, Corbel, Candara, Calibri, and Consolas''.

A Page is the area that occupies the entire viewport of the mobile screen during its current state. Based on cultural norms of reading conventions and how people process information, we must design and layout page information accordingly. We also want to create information that is easily accessed, and easy to locate. Our users are not stationary, or focused entirely on the screen. They’re everywhere and they want information quickly and easy to manipulate.

The Page that will be discussed here is subdivided into the following chapter:

Wrapper

A wrapper is a template that is used to organize page information consistently across the OS. Using a wrapper allows information to be organized hierarchically on a page. This organization will relate to the user’s mental model of page structure to quickly increase learnability and satisfaction while decreasing performance errors.

This chapter will discuss the following topics:

Digital Display Page Layout Principles

Using page layouts can provide a consistent user and brand experience that support content organization and layout, advertising requirements, navigation, and message display characteristics such as legibility and readability.

Mobile users have specific tasks and goals. They require the information to be quickly located and effectively organized. Therefore, the page layouts need to reflect the mental models and schemas understood by the users. If these are ignored, users will become frustrated, unsatisfied with their experience, create miscues and errors, and might even give up!

Furthermore, using page layouts wisely, allows you to organize and place content effectively on valuable screen real estate where every pixel is important.

Page Layout Guidelines for Mobile Users

  • Mobile screen real estate is valuable. Avoid uses of pointless banners, bars, useless images, and graphics that take up space.
  • Lay out elements with a design hierarchy. There are optional versions, and some interactive types insist time is another component, but for simplicity it's: Position > Size > Shape > Contrast > Color > Form. The most important items are larger, higher, brighter, and so on.

  • Consider Gestalt Laws of Closure, Continuity, Figure and Ground, Proximity, Relative Size, Similarity, and Symmetry. These laws were created based on how we visually recognize and process patterns. See Part II Components for more detailed information.
  • Use consistent and simple navigation elements. People have limits to the amount of information they can store in their short term memory. Therefore, they automatically filter information that is important and stands out. Information elements that are excessively displayed and irrelevant will be ignored and overlooked.
  • Wayfinding is really rooted in real-world navigation, like getting around town, or finding the right room in a building. Kevin Lynch, an environmental psychologist, established five wayfinding elements that people use to identify their position: Paths, Edges, Nodes, Landmarks, and Districts. These same environmental elements are also referenced when navigating digital content on websites or mobile devices. Page numbers, titles, headers and footers, tabs, links and more provide a lot of help that we've inherited almost as a whole for interactive design.
  • Consider how users will view your page when plotting content. Generally, users will look for high-priority information in the upper left of the content area (Nielsen: 2010).
  • Multi-column text is not to meet some design style, but to restrict line length. And line lengths are not based on fixed sizes, or even percentages of page width, but on character count. Long lines are harder to read. Anything over about 60-65 characters (averaged) is the maximum length you want to use. Too short depends on how many long words you have.
  • Titles describe pages, elements within a page, and content sections. Use them consistently and appropriately.
  • ANNUNCIATOR ROWS
  • The term false bottom, or false top, is interactive design specific, and refers to users thinking they are at the end of the content and not continuing to scroll. If text flows from one column to the next, or one page to the next, it must be designed so the relationship between them is clear. "Continued on page 86" is all but a hyperlink from the past, which has been inherited by interactive; "read the rest of this blog post" is basically the same thing.
  • Interactive systems have an additional challenge in that the page might be larger than the screen (or viewport as we often call it).
  • PARALLAX

Message Display Characteristics

Mobiles are used differently from desktops, and even most print use of type. They are closest, perhaps, to signage in that they must be comprehended by all user populations, under the broadest possible range of environmental conditions (e.g. poor lighting) and at a glance. The typical mobile user is working with the device in a highly interruptible manner, glancing at the screen for much of their interaction.

The message display elements must be immediately detected, discriminated, identified, readable and comprehendible. In essence, they must be legible. In order to create effective message displays that are legible for mobile displays, understanding the basic elements of type is important. This information will assist you when choosing the appropriate typeface for your design.

Typographical Features, Baselines, and Measurements

  • Font – A font is a physical character or characters that is produced and displayed.

  • Typeface- Typeface is a collection of characters-letters, numbers, symbols, punctuation marks, etc.

  • Glyph- The smallest shape of a character that still conveys its meaning.

  • Baseline- is the axis where the main body of text sits. Some letters may slightly extend below the baseline

  • X-height- is the height of the main lowercase body from the baseline. It is the size of the lower case letter x. It excludes ascenders and descenders. For Mobile and Small-Screen Devices, the x-height must be between 65 and 80% of the cap height.

  • Cap height- is the distance from the baseline to the height of the capital letter and the ascender. When figuring a font’s point size, the cap height is used.

  • Descender Line-The descender is the part of a letter that extends below the baseline. The descender line is the axis in which all descenders within the font family rest against. For Mobile and Small-Screen Devices, do not use excessive descenders – avoid exceeding 15 - 20% of the cap-height, to avoid excessive leading.

  • Ascender- An ascender is part of the letter that extends above the x-height. For Mobile and Small-Screen Devices, do not have ascenders above the cap height – critical for non-English languages

  • Counter forms- Counter forms are the negative spaces formed inside characters and also between characters, known as kerning.

  • Stress - Stress is adding curvature to the straight shapes of a letterform. This is generally not desired for mobile faces. At best, the small rendered size will simply blur out these subtleties. It could also make it impossible to render sharp letters at small sizes.

  • Stems- Stems are main vertical or diagonal elements of a character. CONSIDER?

  • BOWLS-

Letterforms and Their Parts

  • Serifs - are finishing details at the ends of a character’s main stroke. They extend outward. They are not solely decorative. They also help with our ability to discriminate other characters that make up lines of text. Serif faces are more readable for large blocks of type than sans-serif faces. However, in small mobile type, these may become undetectable, blurry, and decrease legibility due to the limits of screen pixel technologies.

  • San-Serifs – Are characters without serifs. For mobile type, sans-serif is often the default choice as it works well enough for all uses, at all sizes. For users that have poor vision, you may need to use san-serifs that include more visually distinct characters in certain cases.

  • Square Serifs - Square serifs use block serifs. Using these may be a good compromise, to assure the serifs display at the rendered sizes. Appropriate kerning is important to use for letter discrimination and legibility.

Letter Height

During the letterpressing era of movable type, letters were created from cast sorts. These sorts were arranged together to form words and sentences. Each metal sort was designed to have a specific measurement. The letter’s height was measured from the top to the bottom of the sort, not the actual letter. This standard measurement became known as the type’s point size. On the sort, letter heights varied across typefaces, even though they may have shared the same sort height. Therefore, different typefaces may have the same point size, but the actual letter height may differ.

Today, we commonly use the point size system. We have also standardized type using picas, and ems.

  • Point. One point equals 1/72 of an inch or .35 millimeters.

  • Pica. 12 points equal one pica. A pica is the unit usually used to measure the width of columns.

  • Em. In digital type, an em defines the proportion of the letter width and height with respect to the point size of the current font. So, a typeface of 12 points will have an Em of 1, where 1 em is equal to 12pts.

Letter Width

Letter Width is known as set width. Set width measures the width of the letter and a small cushion.

NEED MORE

Letter Spacing

  • Kerning. Kerning (or tracking) is the space between letters. Ideally, this is automatically generated and follows well-established principles laid out by the type designer.

  • Leading. Larger leading can often increase readability in poor conditions, such as low light or in motion, but too much can make it impossible to understand that two lines are related to each other.

Alignment

Alignment of type is used as a design tool, and to make the text fit appropriately. And "alignment" is the right word. We use left-align, right-align, and center.

Justified

Justification is a single entity with type adjusted to be straight on both the left and right sides. This is more readable on small columns, but less readable on longer columns, where "ragged right" or left-aligned type is better. When you justify type there will be changes to the kerning, between words and between letters, and if this is poorly done then the type becomes difficult to read. Fix this with wider columns, or tweaking the hyphenation rules.

Typefaces for Screen Display

Back in 1975, AT&T wanted a new typeface to commemorate the company’s 100th anniversary. AT&T indicated that the requirements for the new typeface must fit more characters per line without reducing legibility to reduce paper consumption, reduce the need for abbreviations and two-line entries, increase legibility at the smaller point sizes, and be used for the phonebook directory. Matthew Carter, a type designer, got the job and created the new typeface Bell Centennial.

Carter’s new sans-serif typeface was more condensed, increased the x-height, and used more space in the open counters and bowls. Aware of the printing limitations, he used letters with deep ink traps, which allowed for the counterforms to be open making them more legible at smaller point sizes. His typeface was not effective at larger point sizes or on stock paper because the ink traps never filled completely. However, for its intended purpose, it was very effective in the phonebook directory.

This example explains that a particular typeface can be context specific. In 1975, available technology, the medium, and users were considered. As designers and developers today, these considerations remain throughout the design process. You need to understand that when choosing a typeface, context of use is key.

Challenges of Mobile Typography Today

Computer-based type, especially for internet display, has always been a challenge due to display technologies (resolution), availability of type, color and contrast reproduction variations and size variations. Mobile devices take these issues, magnify them, and add on a spate of unique environmental and use-pattern issues. The primary barrier is of technology, and the primary concern is of readability within the user's context.

While this challenge will slowly dissolve, it will always be present to some degree. Inexpensive devices, specialist devices (youth, elderly and ruggedized) and emerging markets needs, seem to indicate these issues will persist for another decade at least.

Technology Concerns

While some devices are beginning to allow effectively unlimited type selection, support vector glyphs, and have large amount of storage and running memory, most mobile devices are still resource and technology constrained. General issues of storage on the device, running memory, download times and cost of network access, limit availability of type for mobile application design. As almost all devices require raster (bitmap) faces, each size is loaded as a complete, different typeface. Most products end up with the device's default type, or with a very limited set of choices for their application.

Digital Fonts Today

Most current phones use anti-aliased fonts and many of these are available in TrueType versions that you can use on your PC. Anti-aliasing renders some of pixels shades of gray along the edges of the letter. This helps users to perceive the letter as being smooth. Anti-aliased text is more legible when using larger font sizes for titles and headings; however, using anti-aliasing text in small font sizes tends to create a blurry image. Consider the mobile display’s capabilities when choosing the font size and font family because they might not be available for that mobile device.

Bitmap Fonts

Bitmap fonts consist of a series of dots or pixels representing the image of each glyph in each typeface and size. Each font is a “picture” of a typeface at a specific size. Early computers with limited memory and processing speed used bitmap fonts exclusively.

Today, bitmap fonts are used primarily in the Linux console, and embedded devices. BUT, MANY MOBILE DEVICES TAKE VECTOR FONTS AND RASTORIZE THEM?

Advantages

  • Quick and easy to render.
  • Bitmap fonts look best at their native pixel size.

Disadvantages

  • Scaling to non-native sizes can lead to jagged edges. More advanced systems perform anti-aliasing on bitmap fonts whose size does not match the size that the application requests.
  • They have limited optimized sizes.
  • Different sizes must be embedded into the device.

Examples of screen fonts

  • Old .pcf and .bdf fonts used by X Window System.

Vector Fonts

  • TrueType Fonts. TrueType fonts can be scaled to any size and are clear and readable in all sizes. They can be sent to any printer or other output device supported by Windows

  • OpenType. OpenType fonts are related to TrueType fonts, but typically incorporate a greater extension of the basic character set, such as small capitalization, old-style numerals, and more detailed shapes, such as glyph and ligatures. OpenType fonts are also clear and readable in all sizes and can be sent to any printer or other output device supported by Windows.

  • ClearType. ClearType is a technology for displaying computer fonts so that they appear clear and smooth. ClearType makes on-screen text more detailed and, therefore, easier to read for long periods of time without experiencing eye strain and mental fatigue. It works especially well when you're using LCD devices, including flat-panel monitors, mobile PCs, and smaller hand-held devices.

ClearType improves resolution by turning on and off each of the colors in the pixel. Before ClearType, the entire pixel had to be turned on and off. This tighter control over the red, blue, and green fractions of a pixel can increase the clarity on an LCD monitor by up to 300 percent. You can use either type of monitor, but you'll get the most benefit when you use an LCD monitor. This is because ClearType was made to work with LCD technology, which keeps specific pixels in specific places. ClearType takes advantage of pixels being in a fixed place by turning fractions of the pixel on and off. A CRT monitor doesn’t work in the same way with ClearType because it uses an electron beam to excite, or move around, pixels, instead of keeping them stationary. Still, you might experience some improvement in clarity when you use ClearType on a CRT monitor because ClearType smooths jagged font edges. This is called antialiasing. Optimized Windows fonts for ClearType include: Constantia, Cambria, Corbel, Candara, Calibri, and Consolas.

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