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Realtime Responsive Typography Based on Viewing Distance via Webcam

webdesign.maratz.com

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Re: Realtime Responsive Typography Based on Viewing Distance via Webcam

#52
post #26
post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Whatever that font is (Source Pro Sans), it's fairly unreadable to me (Chrome on Ubuntu). My eyesight is not great, but having a font that is too thin doesn't help either. I wish body text just stayed in either serif or sans-serif at 1em. Use custom fonts for headers, but let my browser preferences determine the body text.

Fixed, you're absolutely right - that font should only be used for headers.

Only because you are using the extremely thin version. There's a thicker version of the font that's perfectly readable as body.

Re: Realtime Responsive Typography Based on Viewing Distance via Webcam

#55
post #48

Cool experiment! But maybe I'm not understanding something. When a human can't see an object in sufficient detail they lean forwards to increase its apparent size in their optical field. This breaks that fundamental interaction. When you lean forward it stays the same size. Argh! In other words if your eyes are good enough to read the large text, they'll be good enough to read the small text when you lean in - nothin…

I don't think the application of this technology would be the way it is on this page: likely it would detect your face and then set the text accordingly, and then leave it alone. A constantly changing text size is bad interaction anyway.

It also shouldn't be in websites. This would make an awesome browser plug-in, which would also let you calibrate it (as mentioned by someone else) to be the "right size" for your vision.

I think a U-shaped curve could also be good: big text when you're far away, small text when you're at normal viewing distances, and zoom further [esp for full-page zoom] when you lean in very close.

Re: Realtime Responsive Typography Based on Viewing Distance via Webcam

#56

Cool experiment! But maybe I'm not understanding something. When a human can't see an object in sufficient detail they lean forwards to increase its apparent size in their optical field. This breaks that fundamental interaction. When you lean forward it stays the same size. Argh! In other words if your eyes are good enough to read the large text, they'll be good enough to read the small text when you lean in - nothin…

Well obviously we can solve that by detecting how far the user is from the camera and increasing the "root size" as they get closer. /s
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