Citing Accessibility, State Department Ditches Times New Roman for Calibri - Design Post 17

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    According to Daniel Victor the author of the article “Citing Accessibility, State Department Ditches Times New Roman for Calibri” written in the New York Times, the United States Department has decided to change the typeface that they use to make it more accessible for those with any sort of disability.

    This transition took place on February 6th, 2023, and the final decision was to adopt Calibri as the new typeface. This will be applied to all of the Department's formal documents and communications.

    Victor states that the department's first chief diversity officer said in an interview that this change will make the department’s paperwork “fully inclusive.”

    Deciding on a typeface can be a controversial topic because there are many opinions on what typefaces are easier to read, what looks professional, and what message the overall typeface is sending out.

    In this case, the debate is over accessibility. This font represents an organization that people of the United States have to deal with at some point in their lives. This means that all of the people need to be able to understand the documents and a part of understanding them, is being able to read the typeface and font with ease.

    In saying this, two typefaces that are commonly used are serifs and sans-serifs. Serif typefaces have wings, feet, and edges on them. Sans-serif typefaces do not have these features. Some professionals state that the serifs help lead the viewer's eyes through the word and make it easier to read, and some say they are a distraction. On the other hand, they say the sans-serif fonts are the way to go because there are no distractions at all. It is clean-cut and to the point. A majority of professionals are leaning towards sans-serif fonts because they are overall easy to read for everyone, and that includes people with cognitive differences, learning differences, and low vision.

    There is however still some debate on Calibri. This typeface is not perfect. There could be some spaces between the letters. “The capital I and the lowercase l look the same, the lowercase i should have more space between the dot and the body, the commas and periods should be bigger, and the a and g are shapes that are not natural to the way the human eye is taught,” says Mr. David Berman.

    Also, the size of the font has yet to be chosen, but the size will be between 14-18. The State is worried because the larger the font size is the more paper and other products they will have to use when they are preparing their documents.

    People with disabilities are not the only ones affected by this change everyone is. This is why more clarity is needed in the new typeface.

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