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Nokia’s legendary font makes for a great user interface font

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317 points rguiscard | 5 comments | 30 Aug 25 12:31 UTC | HN request time: 0s | source
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delta_p_delta_x ◴[30 Aug 25 13:26 UTC] No.45074482[source]▶
UI has some very particular requirements—typefaces have to be hinted really well so that they work on displays with lower pixel density. Also, such typefaces generally have very tall x-heights so characters can be distinguished well, which can be seen in all the early 2000s UI typefaces, from this Nokia one to Lucida Grande, to Tahoma. More modern ones tone this down a little, at the cost of some character. SF Pro, Segoe UI and as the user mentioned, Inter are considerably closer to Frutiger and Helvetica.

Speaking of which...

> finally displacing Inter after many years of uncontested service

Inter is by far the blandest typeface possible—it feels like the designer thought 'let's take all the sans-serifs and smush them together'. Its several contextual alternates just dilute it even more. I would never use it for UI, let alone any sort of branding.

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homebrewer ◴[30 Aug 25 13:53 UTC] No.45074710[source]▶
No, Inter is fantastic, it is the only typeface that produces legible text on one of the monitors I have with DPI a bit lower than 82 (I know...)

I look at most fonts that get recommended here and it's immediately obvious they weren't tested on low end monitors at all (which is what most people I know use).

(As an aside, Cascadia is the only compact monospace font that looks good on this POS. Other good looking typefaces are too vertically stretched — oversized x-height.)

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amelius ◴[30 Aug 25 16:47 UTC] No.45076039[source]▶
Why must a UI use the same font on low DPI displays as on high DPI displays?
replies(1): >>45077401 #
Kwpolska ◴[30 Aug 25 19:38 UTC] No.45077401[source]▶
I don't want the font to change just because I moved a window from my high DPI laptop display to my external low DPI display.
replies(1): >>45077426 #
1. amelius ◴[30 Aug 25 19:41 UTC] No.45077426[source]▶
Most people place functionality over design, but there is no reason why you can't have it your way. Just make the fonts configurable. Your usecase isn't very common so I wouldn't make _that_ the default choice, though.
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2. Kwpolska ◴[30 Aug 25 21:24 UTC] No.45078139[source]▶
My use-case isn't very common? Apple has been selling laptops with high DPI screens since 2012, and over in the PC land, many laptops that aren’t cheapo garbage ship with screens that run at 125% or 150% scale. On the other hand, many external displays run at 100% scale, or otherwise at a different scale than the primary screen.
replies(1): >>45079163 #
3. sublinear ◴[31 Aug 25 00:09 UTC] No.45079152[source]▶
I think it's very common to have a large 1080p screen as a second monitor (projectors and TVs).

When pixels are that big, the readability of a good font allows you to actually use the extra space instead of just making everything huge.

4. amelius ◴[31 Aug 25 00:12 UTC] No.45079163[source]▶
Ok, in the Apple world choosing design over functionality is quite normal, I guess. Maybe things should work differently there. I don't know because I don't use Apple hardware and actually try to avoid it.

Anyway, I don't think that changing fonts on different displays is really a problem. If you're reading a book and a magazine, then switching between the two will also cause the fonts which you see to switch, and it's not like your brain has any trouble with it. Basically, your brain can quickly and easily get comfortable with the idea of looking at A and seeing font 1, and looking at B and seeing font 2.

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5. Kwpolska ◴[31 Aug 25 11:41 UTC] No.45082423{3}[source]▶
I went to dell.com, looked at laptops, and the first laptop they showed me [0] has this:

    16" 2.5K (2560 x 1600) Anti-Glare Non-Touch 300nits WVA/IPS Display with ComfortView Plus
This is absolutely unusable at 100% scale. Windows probably defaults to something between 150% and 200%, and probably on the further end of the scale. And if you don’t want crisp fonts, the alternative [1] is:

    16.0-inch 16:10 FHD+ (1920x1200) Touch 300nits WVA/IPS Display with ComfortView
Windows defaults to 125% scale on screens like this. 100% is not comfortable at typical viewing distances.

[0] https://www.dell.com/en-us/shop/dell-laptops/dell-16-plus-la...

[1] https://www.dell.com/en-us/shop/dell-laptops/dell-16-laptop/...