Public Sans – A strong, neutral typeface for text or display • Hacker News Board

Re: Public Sans – A strong, neutral typeface for text or display

#121

Post by motivated_gear » Mon, Apr 08, 2019, 9:01 PM UTC

phkahler wrote: post #119

eddietejeda wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yup. I run Federalist at 18F and absolutely love the work, the challenge and colleagues. We do everything in the open, so feel free to follow our work here: https://github.com/18F/federalist We also implement the USWDS, which you can follow here: https://github.com/18F/federalist-uswds-jekyll Let me know if you have any questions!

>> Let me know if you have any questions! If this is meant for web sites, I have a question and I ask this on HN a lot. Why does the government need to provide ANY fonts? I have a real problem with websites pushing their own fonts on users. I don't think it's their place. Users should select their preferred font in their own browser. Why would a US government site feel the need to use particular fonts? If this is for…

I would argue that a font is a part of an organization's brand. I think publishers like Airbnb and google have built around Cereal and roboto respectively.

Re: Public Sans – A strong, neutral typeface for text or display

#122

Post by alexpetralia » Mon, Apr 08, 2019, 9:02 PM UTC

zestyping wrote: post #105

zestyping wrote: post #85

Why does the "j" have a larger dot than the "i"? Is there any reason for this? It just looks like an error to me.

Filed, and got a response right away! https://github.com/uswds/uswds/issues/3024

This is amazing. What is this - a startup?!

Re: Public Sans – A strong, neutral typeface for text or display

#123

Post by brooksgarrett » Mon, Apr 08, 2019, 9:10 PM UTC

codetrotter wrote: post #115

dclowd9901 wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Applaud us when getting FOIA requests responded to doesn’t require retaining lawyers.

We should always demand more from our governments. But we should also celebrate them for doing good. The politicians and government workers are people too, and while different people have different motivations I know that I am not alone in valuing praise from others highly. If all someone hears is complaints, I think they are probably more likely to burn out. I don’t have any source to back this claim, but it’s how I…

Not data but a strong anecdote to support your assertion: https://www.forbes.com/sites/jasonevangelho/2019/04/08/linux...

Re: Public Sans – A strong, neutral typeface for text or display

#124

Post by apeace » Mon, Apr 08, 2019, 9:15 PM UTC

eddietejeda wrote: post #41

2bitencryption wrote: post #3

This is so interesting. These modern sites clash really hard with my mental visual of "Government technology." And it led me to this, which is maybe even more interesting: https://federalist.18f.gov/

Yup. I run Federalist at 18F and absolutely love the work, the challenge and colleagues. We do everything in the open, so feel free to follow our work here: https://github.com/18F/federalist We also implement the USWDS, which you can follow here: https://github.com/18F/federalist-uswds-jekyll Let me know if you have any questions!

I clicked on a couple of the example sites and they appeared to be down. Any idea what's up?

https://cio.gov

https://performance.gov/

Re: Public Sans – A strong, neutral typeface for text or display

#125

Post by otras » Mon, Apr 08, 2019, 9:16 PM UTC

archgoon wrote: post #15

2bitencryption wrote: post #3

This is so interesting. These modern sites clash really hard with my mental visual of "Government technology." And it led me to this, which is maybe even more interesting: https://federalist.18f.gov/

The USDS (US Digital Service) was born in the fire of the healthcare.gov fiasco, and several industry veterans from Google stepped in to fix the infrastructure issues they saw within the US Government. Currently, @Matt_Cutts is leading the org. I can only think that your comment brings a smile to his face.

I always enjoy reading the job posting in the monthly whoishiring thread. I also like that Matt is active in the comments answering questions. For example, April: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19545383

Re: Public Sans – A strong, neutral typeface for text or display

#126

Post by quickthrower2 » Mon, Apr 08, 2019, 9:27 PM UTC

harshreality wrote: post #99

Sans is overused. Please do not use (or carefully consider before using) sans fonts for long blocks of text you expect people to read.[1] [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=soYKFWqVVzg#t=34m53s "I disagree, I like sans [for long prose] better" comments miss the point; this is not an anecdata competition, it's about how many people prefer each one (and also it would be worth considering how strongly they hold that pr…

Funny enough Medium uses a serif font, and I enjoy reading it more, and it inspired me to do the same on my site. But I use Georgia so I don't need any fancy web fonts or wat not.

Re: Public Sans – A strong, neutral typeface for text or display

#127

Post by andrewshadura » Mon, Apr 08, 2019, 9:27 PM UTC

2bitencryption wrote: post #3

This is so interesting. These modern sites clash really hard with my mental visual of "Government technology." And it led me to this, which is maybe even more interesting: https://federalist.18f.gov/

Have you seen gov.uk?

Re: Public Sans – A strong, neutral typeface for text or display

#128

Post by _kst_ » Mon, Apr 08, 2019, 9:28 PM UTC

apeace wrote: post #124

eddietejeda wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yup. I run Federalist at 18F and absolutely love the work, the challenge and colleagues. We do everything in the open, so feel free to follow our work here: https://github.com/18F/federalist We also implement the USWDS, which you can follow here: https://github.com/18F/federalist-uswds-jekyll Let me know if you have any questions!

I clicked on a couple of the example sites and they appeared to be down. Any idea what's up? https://cio.gov https://performance.gov/

Both were up for me when I tried them just now (12 minutes after your comment).

Re: Public Sans – A strong, neutral typeface for text or display

#129

Post by jrochkind1 » Mon, Apr 08, 2019, 9:29 PM UTC

vesinisa wrote: post #90

eddietejeda wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yup. I run Federalist at 18F and absolutely love the work, the challenge and colleagues. We do everything in the open, so feel free to follow our work here: https://github.com/18F/federalist We also implement the USWDS, which you can follow here: https://github.com/18F/federalist-uswds-jekyll Let me know if you have any questions!

I must applaud your legislators for their foresight when they wrote the federal copyright charter. All works by. U.S. federal employees are in public domain, forming one of the planet's largest bodies of free online resources. The cultural impact of this collection is considerable also globally. In my country, all tax-funded government works are copyrighted. It's an ongoing battle to make each department release thei…

Doesn't apply to works by contractors paid by the government though. I don't know which this font is.

Re: Public Sans – A strong, neutral typeface for text or display

#130

Post by Someone1234 » Mon, Apr 08, 2019, 9:30 PM UTC

saagarjha wrote: post #96

Someone1234 wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pages don't need a fallback to non-Javascript in 2019. Accessibility technologies now fully support a JS enabled web, with accessibility standards following suit. That leaves only those who have voluntarily disabled JavaScript ( I've worked on public facing government websites (not 18F). We simply don't support this edge case, and our legal department supports our legal right to do so (in particular in relation to AD…

> Pages don't need a fallback to non-Javascript in 2019. Strongly disagree. Having your page completely break instead of degrading gracefully puts up a barrier to those who cannot run JavaScript (for example, users with older, weaker computers).

People on "older, weaker computers" are likely running a browser we also don't support (It is unlikely that there exists a subset of users with a modern enough computer to even hit our web servers that is under-powered to the point of not handling JavaScript. Our analytics definitely don't show this.