RE: Study: The effect of serifs and stroke contrast on low vision reading

Hi Andrew, I understand what is being said about low contrast stroke.

When I speak to people who prefer low contrast (lightness) text – I believe it’s not about recognition of the text but about the impact that high contrast has on the visual system.  Some people report that high contrast patterns can cause migraine like symptoms.  So it’s more about the impact which prevents them from staring at high contrast lightness text.

Jonathan

From: Andrew Somers <andy@generaltitles.com>
Sent: Monday, January 2, 2023 3:04 PM
To: Laura Carlson <laura.lee.carlson@gmail.com>
Cc: public-low-vision-a11y-tf <public-low-vision-a11y-tf@w3.org>
Subject: Re: Study: The effect of serifs and stroke contrast on low vision reading

And to follow up my previous post I wonder if misunderstandings relating to the meaning of “font-stroke-contrast" versus actual "visual contrast" is what led to this weird myth that seems to persist on the internet today, claiming that "some people need low contrast text”.

???

I have been searching for credible research that might affirm the assertion “some people need lower contrast” but I'm not finding much relevant … And I am increasingly thinking, that some may have read "low contrast font” in some paper but are misinterpreting it to mean low contrast colors, when it actually means having a font with a more uniform stroke width.




On Jan 2, 2023, at 11:40 AM, Andrew Somers <andy@generaltitles.com<mailto:andy@generaltitles.com>> wrote:

Thank you Laura, that's a very interesting study, and directly echoes my personal viewpoint on this particular subject.

I want to make a note here for anybody that reads this study:

The study uses the term "stroke contrast". It's very important to recognize that in the context that they are using it, stroke-contrast relates to the variation in stroke within a particular glyph.

And the effect is exactly opposite of the actual visual contrast.

In other words in the context of font contrast as in the stroke-contrast within a glyph, e.g. Times New Roman has very high stroke contrast.

But the visual contrast of Times is lower than that of Helvetica. Helvetica, having a uniform stroke width therefore has a low stroke contrast but (perhaps counterintuitively) that results with its visual contrast as higher.

Here's an example:

<Screen Shot 2023-01-02 at 11.35.14 AM.png>




On Dec 27, 2022, at 8:17 AM, Laura Carlson <laura.lee.carlson@gmail.com<mailto:laura.lee.carlson@gmail.com>> wrote:

Fyi:
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0001691822003250


Kind Regards,
Laura

--
Laura L. Carlson