innovate 6 - Helen Hamlyn Centre - Royal College of Art

Tony Howard, Roundel‘When we started we thought we were just goingto design a typeface that would display reallywell on digital screens and improve thedecipherability of information for everybody.When we looked into it, we found out thatthe problem was much, much bigger than wethought, but the user group convinced us that itreally was worth looking at.’Recommendations> Maximum angle for reading overheadsigns should be 30º from the horizontal> Screens should be angled downwards toreduce glare with reflections from floorsand walls taken into consideration> Non-reflective glass to be used and angleof adjustment variable for each screen> Sign should be positioned to avoid directlight from windows, glazed roofs andoverhead lighting> Consistency in graphic presentation,language and physical presentation> Humanist sans serif typeface preferableto Grotesque> Spacing of words kept loose tocompensate for larger viewing distances> DMR (Dalton Maag Roundel) typefacedeveloped as example of best practice> Few but consistent colour changes withtest pages converted to greyscale tocheck for contrast and tested in actualenvironment> Scrolling should be vertical not horizontal,with transitional fade in/fade outpreferred.21