I used to tell myself I couldn't code or write without the perfect font. I'd spend hours looking for it, and end up not getting any work done. When I finally did get around to actually working, five minutes in and I'd forget about the font completely.
I have a (rather lazy) friend who's been asking me to help him start a blog for years now. I've promised to after he
produces his first block of content, and he keeps saying he can't write if he doesn't feel the design is aesthetically pleasing. If he'd spent his time writing instead of worrying about this, he'd have a crappy initial draft, several revised drafts, and probably something decent by now. But no, that prohibitively unattractive font!
It was nice of iA to write this up, and design posts are a fun read, but does anyone who's busy actually writing care about this?
I recently converted my dynamic DB-driven blog to a static website. I did not predict how badly the added latency between having an idea, writing down the first flawed paragraph, saving a draft, reading what I wrote, then revising and publishing would reduce my writing output. Sure, I can write in Google Docs, but because it's not on my site one click away from being "out there" I am far less compelled to write down my fleeting ideas. Over time I have learned that fleeting ideas are the best ones because they exist at the limit of your understanding. Maybe if you help set up his blog, he'll be more likely to write?
I had the opposite feeling. I wrote my PhD thesis in 1998-2000 and the editor of choice at the time was Word.
It was a pain to deal with the formatting, spacing, page breaking and other -ings.
I then tried LaTeX and all problems vanished. Since I could not influence the output (at least without a lot of work) I simply gave up and started to "code my text". It was way faster than admiring my artful working all the time, I just complied the text from time to time and I was done.
Markdown is a must. I used it on dynamic blog and on my static site, but I paid less attention to my writing when posts were not "live".
I believe that Bret Victor's Inventing on Principle concept of minimising the time between having an idea and seeing a change universally applies to every user kind of interface.
His buddy isn't being blocked by a clunky workflow, though. His friend has trouble starting because he can't see his writing in a font that he likes.
I'd suggest that the friend write his first post in Word or somesuch with a font that he likes. Then, when he has a good first post, export it to the blog.
I completely agree. I spent quite awhile setting up a Hugo powered blog, getting my theme just right, getting GitHub pages with CloudFlare for SSL working. And then...nothing. Because there's just too much friction.
I'm going to move to WordPress and be done with it. No I won't have faster than lightning page loads anymore, but it'll be much lower friction to publish something.
For me, I need breaks, and stimulation. Sometimes, tinkering with fonts and colors is just the right kind of distraction to get a project back on track, and to replenish my joy of coding.
Honestly, I think I have about six hours of full-concentration work in me in a typical day. Less, if it's mentally demanding work. Sometimes, the best thing I can do for a project is take a walk, or let it rest for a bit and let my subconscious keep churning on it.
I'd guess in almost any trade, the craftspeople care about their tools, even aspects that are mostly aesthetic. I consider myself pretty busy, but I still spend a half an hour every few months reviewing the space of available fonts, looking for something that appeals even more than my current favorite.
(FWIW that's PT Mono for the last few months, after almost a decade of using Ubuntu Mono exclusively.)
Most subtle ergonomic issues are weakly related of our preferences. Even if people consciously prefer one font to another, they may be more productive in the one they don't like. If there is actual difference, it should be measured not discussed.
Dual space fonts look and feel good for me, but I'm not sure if they have any value. Even aesthetic value may wear off and be just novelty.
I have a (rather lazy) friend who's been asking me to help him start a blog for years now. I've promised to after he produces his first block of content, and he keeps saying he can't write if he doesn't feel the design is aesthetically pleasing. If he'd spent his time writing instead of worrying about this, he'd have a crappy initial draft, several revised drafts, and probably something decent by now. But no, that prohibitively unattractive font!
It was nice of iA to write this up, and design posts are a fun read, but does anyone who's busy actually writing care about this?