Don't get stuck optimizing a local maxima, which is very easy to do if you're using AB tests.
Surely if there is one thing we have learned from the culture of comparative testing in recent years, it is that assumption is the mother of all #$%& ups.
Everyone commenting in this discussion to the effect that all sites should use system default fonts is making a huge assumption that using other fonts does not have a material effect on anything that matters to the user and/or the site owner. And yet, both in industry and in academia, lots of research has been done that did observe changes in outcomes even from relatively subtle (at least to an untrained eye) changes in typography.
If someone wants to argue that they personally do not like web fonts then of course they are free to block them. Any major content blocker on their platform of choice will do this easily enough. But if someone wants to argue that everyone else should avoid web fonts, they had better bring data. In this entire discussion, I don't see much of that, only personal preferences and the odd anecdote about a bug in a specific situation.
Surely if there is one thing we have learned from the culture of comparative testing in recent years, it is that assumption is the mother of all #$%& ups.
Everyone commenting in this discussion to the effect that all sites should use system default fonts is making a huge assumption that using other fonts does not have a material effect on anything that matters to the user and/or the site owner. And yet, both in industry and in academia, lots of research has been done that did observe changes in outcomes even from relatively subtle (at least to an untrained eye) changes in typography.
If someone wants to argue that they personally do not like web fonts then of course they are free to block them. Any major content blocker on their platform of choice will do this easily enough. But if someone wants to argue that everyone else should avoid web fonts, they had better bring data. In this entire discussion, I don't see much of that, only personal preferences and the odd anecdote about a bug in a specific situation.