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Comment by grantheaslip | Hacker News Reader

I think the others who replied to this are missing the point -- he's complaining about the number of sites with fonts that look blurry, jagged, or just plain hideous on many text rendering engines (especially, but by no means limited to, Windows).

One could argue this is Microsoft's fault, and there's probably some credence to that, but it's kind of beside the point. Far too many sites seem to have been designed on OS X and not tested anywhere else, and it's an obnoxious, lazy, and frankly elitist practice that needs to end.

Another related syndrome are sites designed on professional-grade monitors, with no thought given to how they're going to look on the other 95% of screens. This kind of shit is like engineering a car in California and just assuming it will work well in February in Montreal.

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Not having pretty font rendering must be so hard on the poor Windows minority, suffering under the stifling oppression of the Mac OS majority... Oh wait...

Seriously, if you want pretty font rendering, complain to Microsoft. The problem isn't that the sites are designed on Mac OS, it's just that Windows' font rendering sucks. It's horrific. We can't fix that. What is it you want us to do, put all text in images? That's been the traditional response to your platform's horrific font rendering.

Pragmatically-speaking, image rendering or choosing another font are the only way your site is going to look good on a Windows (or other, non-OSX) machine. You're correct in that the font-rendering used on Windows machines is geared toward different goals that that on Macs, but that fact doesn't make the web page look any better to the user using a PC.

And they're going to blame you for using a custom font, not Microsoft.

I don't understand the point of your sarcasm in the first line. The idea is that Mac users are overrepresented in the web-designer community vs. the user community. So in essence, there exist a significant number of websites that appear to have never been tested in non-OSX browsers, for it they were, it would be apparent to the designer that they look like shit in those environments.

The font rendering dysfunction on Windows is not limited to "custom" fonts, the fonts Microsoft includes with Windows look just as awful. If you think they look good, I submit that you're probably suffering from a bad case of Stockholm syndrome.

The point of my sarcasm is that Mac users were mocked for years by the Windows crowd when they complained about major compatibility problems and were entirely ignored by most of the tech industry.

I can't help but revel in the poetic justice, and note with great hostility the dichotomy. We're now called "obnoxious", "lazy", and "elitist" because we don't waste time working around Microsoft's dysfunction just so things that work perfectly will look exactly as Windows users wish they would.

I think properly-hinted fonts look better (or at least more readable) than OS X, and I did even when I used a MacBook as my primary machine from 2007-2010. It's not Stockholm syndrome, it's a different preference.

But to your "poetic justice" point, is this about revenge for perceived injustices, or about providing the best experience for users? Because the fact is that most sites are overwhelmingly viewed by Windows users. When it comes to professional work, you can't be making decisions with huge UX implications out of spite. Most people haven't even heard of ClearType, and shouldn't be caught in the crossfire of your bizarre crusade against it.

If you're unknowingly using fonts that look like shit in Windows because you're not testing, you're (at best) lazy and unprofessional. If you're knowingly using fonts that look like shit in Windows because you harbor a decade-old grudge, you're an childish asshole who should be out of work.

You can't have it both ways -- either the quality of font rendering is a matter of preference, or we're "childish assholes" because we refuse to meet some objective standard. Which is it? And if it's the latter, where can I find this objective standard?

My point of contention isn't which style of rendering you or I prefer, it's whether or not you're justified in ignoring (if not intentionally sabotaging) the UX of the vast majority of users because of said preference.

I never claimed there was any objective standard -- you did.

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