[DejaVu-bugs] [Bug 107480] New: The upper i (U+0049) should have serifs so as not to be confused with lower l (U+006C) in all Sans fonts

[bugzilla-daemon at freedesktop.org]

https://bugs.freedesktop.org/show_bug.cgi?id=107480

            Bug ID: 107480
           Summary: The upper i (U+0049) should have serifs so as not to
                    be confused with lower l (U+006C) in all Sans fonts
           Product: DejaVu
           Version: unspecified
          Hardware: Other
                OS: All
            Status: NEW
          Severity: enhancement
          Priority: medium
         Component: Sans
          Assignee: dejavu-bugs at lists.freedesktop.org
          Reporter: developer at chrisbertrand.net

Created attachment 140961
  --> https://bugs.freedesktop.org/attachment.cgi?id=140961&action=edit
Suggestion Bahnschrift code U+006C

In the DejaVu Sans fonts (except Mono), the upper i (U+0049) glyph is too
similar to the lower l (U+006C).

They are confusing.
For example in French, a good proportion of sentences start by "Il" ("He" in
French). When displayed by DejaVu Sans fonts, they seem to start with two
vertical lines (similar to U+007C by the way). Additionaly you can easily
confuse them with the Roman number 2 at first sight. That makes reading harder
and slower.
In English, a good test is this name: "Illinois". Discussion:
https://www.reddit.com/r/Windows10/comments/6vpv8w/microsofts_new_bahnschrift_font_vs_segoe/

My suggestions:

1. Add serifs to the upper i (U+0049)
You can note that the Verdana font does that, although it is a Sans Serif font.

2. Why not style a bit the lower l (U+006C) to not be a pure vertical line any
more, and avoid confusion with U+007C ?
A good example is in the (Sans Serif) font Bahnschrift code U+006C.

Affected fonts:
DejaVu Sans
DejaVu Sans Condensed
DejaVu Sans Light

-- 
You are receiving this mail because:
You are the assignee for the bug.
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <https://lists.freedesktop.org/archives/dejavu-bugs/attachments/20180804/2133f2ca/attachment.html>