[off topic] ? XP fonts Jakob Nielsen's Alertbox, February 3, 2002:

["Neville" nev@xxxxxxxx]

With the renewed talk on XP & fonts read down for
"Anti-Aliased Screen Fonts". Nothing to do with Xywrite but if you are
using XP on a laptop you may find it informative.


http://www.useit.com/alertbox/20020203.html

Jakob Nielsen's Alertbox, February 3, 2002:

Avoiding Commodity Status
Summary:
PCs do not need to be commodities: a focus on quality can differentiate both
products and services. Software has great potential for getting better, as
shown by an under-appreciated feature in Windows XP that can save users
$2,000 per year.
It is often said that personal computers are pure commodities and that low
prices are the only way to compete. Not true, but differentiation does
require an approach to quality that may be beyond most technology vendors.

One counter-proof is that Steve Jobs succeeds again and again in creating
excitement with good-looking new hardware. This strategy is incredibly easy
to emulate: just give a million dollars to a hot industrial design firm and
they will give you a shape that looks much better than any non-Mac computer.
No deep thinking is required, just write the check.

We desperately need better-looking computers, considering the prominent
place they have in modern offices and homes. When you stare at the thing all
day, it might as well be attractive.

However, industrial design is not the main road ahead for computers.
Improved software design is much more important. This does require some
thinking, and it's not Steve Job's strategy, but I believe that software
innovations are the main way to differentiate both high-tech products and
websites.

Anti-Aliased Screen Fonts
Much has been made of the flat-panel display on the new iMac, but the use of
anti-aliased typefaces in Windows XP is the true revolution in screen design
this year. The new ClearType technology that is included in XP probably
increases reading speed by somewhere between 10% and 15% for users with flat
screens. Unfortunately ClearType doesn't work on traditional CRT monitors,
but even worse, it's turned off by default in new installations of XP, even
for users with flat screens. And due to the clunky nature of user
preferences in Windows, few users will find it if they don't know where to
look.
To turn on ClearType, go to Control Panel > Display > Appearance > Effects
and turn on the checkbox for "smooth edges of screen fonts," making sure
that the popup menu reads "ClearType."

There, reading the Alertbox just saved you $2,000.

To estimate the cost-savings from anti-aliased screen fonts, consider a
business professional who makes $50,000 per year. If this user spends 20% of
his or her time reading emails, intranet pages, and other documents on the
computer screen, then the screen costs the company $20,000 per year (using
the traditional rule that employees cost twice their salary due to benefits,
overhead, etc.). ClearType will make this user at least 10% more productive
while reading from the screen, for a gain of $2,000.

Windows XP has another interesting usability innovation: the task panes that
integrate selected commands and features into places where users are likely
to need them. This design may make advanced features more discoverable and
yet is not as intrusive as the infamous paper clip. I reserve final judgment
until I have seen more user data, but task panes seem a good approach to
overcome asymptoting user performance -- the fact that people stop learning
about a user interface as soon as they know enough to get the basic things
done.

Software: The Great Differentiator
My theory for why so many companies don't want to improve their software and
websites goes as follows: in most other lines of business, it is very
expensive to serve customers better. Thus, it is preferable to talk about
how good the products are, rather than actually improving them.
Truly, there is not much difference between Coke and Pepsi soft drinks or
between Hertz and Avis car rentals. A car rental company can achieve a
competitive advantage by introducing a way for the best customers to not
have to wait in line for their cars, but that's incredibly expensive to do
and requires special staff, special wireless terminals in the rental buses,
and special parking areas at thousands of locations.

For several years, most "analysts" claimed that search engines were
commodities and that image and gimmicks were the way to differentiate a
search provider. No need to invest in designing a better search because
that's not what users want. We now all know that this was false: it was
eminently possible to do search better, and once a better search engine was
on the Web, it conquered the field.

Websites are so difficult to use that almost any company can differentiate
itself through a relatively small investment in usability and programming