Is this really the only evidence provided to support the claim?
Before writing this article, I have experimented with what’s good and what’s bad for my eyes. Reading a black web-safe font on white background made my eyes tired, not sore, after 4 hours. Reading black anti-aliased text in non-web-safe font of the same size, also on white background, on the same screen, same topic, same line lengths and interline spacing made my eyes tired in 8 minutes, made me feeling dizzy in 42 minutes, my eyes became sore in 1 hour and 3 minutes, and the speed of reading was about 20% slower. Reading the same text with anti-aliasing switched off made my eyes tired in 2 hours, but the speed of reading was nearly 70% slower!
That’s all this article offers. Besides, that anecdote, there’s an actual study Microsoft did finding ClearType (their anti-aliased font feature) improved reading speed without increasing fatigue. I can’t immediately find a copy of it online, but one of the authors (Slattery) summarized in the academic anthology “Digital Fonts and Reading” by saying:
Slattery and Rayner [2010] included an analysis of blink rate in their examination of the ClearType anti-aliasing used by Microsoft. They showed that the benefits of anti-aliasing, in terms of reading rate, were not accompanied by any increase in eye fatigue, as measured by blink rate.
This article needs actual evidence before writing a scaremongering headline and recommendations that are the exact opposite of best known practice.
Terrible, click-bait title. It seems to make the case that anti-aliased fonts are annoying, but permanent eye damage that can be attributed to them seems unlikely.
It should be noted that this article is originally from 2012. Displays have improved a fair bit between now and then, so I suspect that most of this person’s claims are dated at best.
Is this really the only evidence provided to support the claim?
That’s all this article offers. Besides, that anecdote, there’s an actual study Microsoft did finding ClearType (their anti-aliased font feature) improved reading speed without increasing fatigue. I can’t immediately find a copy of it online, but one of the authors (Slattery) summarized in the academic anthology “Digital Fonts and Reading” by saying:
This article needs actual evidence before writing a scaremongering headline and recommendations that are the exact opposite of best known practice.
Terrible, click-bait title. It seems to make the case that anti-aliased fonts are annoying, but permanent eye damage that can be attributed to them seems unlikely.
It should be noted that this article is originally from 2012. Displays have improved a fair bit between now and then, so I suspect that most of this person’s claims are dated at best.
I was wondering if this is even an issue with something like a retina display… Anyone know?