The Benefits of System Fonts

Most of the history of web design has been characterized by the use of excellent and beautiful typography. In this it borrows massively from the land of print typography, which, until the development of mobile applications seemed to be the gold standard for all web design. However, in recent years what we value in a website has slowly begun to change. For instance, most web sites these days are actually applications and as such tend to be focused primarily on allowing a user to do work. And, the simple truth is, when working, one doesn’t care for design as much as the comfort one has with a program. Because almost every desktop application inherits the system font, using it through the web can help make an application eminently more approachable.

However, there is another, and more compelling reason for using system fonts: ease of entry. Suppose you are an incoming web developer or designer hopping to make a site your customers will really appreciate. It takes a lot of hard work and a significant amount of study to make typography choices that most suit your users. Now, you might think that, yes, while truly excellent typography requires all that, merely using some proven combinations is enough to improve a site. But is it?

See, the moment we start including custom font’s we’re forced to deal with the host of issues they present to website design. For one, their is the dreaded re-paint after the site is loaded and the font is applied. For another there is the amount of data it takes to download a custom font, especially, as is the usual case, when there are multiple custom fonts used on a site. What’s left is a somewhat slower, slightly jerkier experience for a user, which, although to an extent mitigateable, is not entirely avoidable. So the question becomes, is the site’s typography combinations good enough to warrant slower page loads and content repaints?

The simple truth is that most web developers don’t have the time or skills to apply to that typography, and even when we do, it’s hard to find a usecase where a user will care more about the style of presentation of data then its clarity. There are, of course, exceptions, but for many, the use of web fonts can introduce a complexity that not only adds much work overhead but actually decreases a user’s satisfaction with the site. That’s why the only font’s used in this site are entirely bog standard to the operating system: because there is no way that I can possible figure out a font combination that is more impactful than a faster load time :-].