App redesign - type

As my app will be largely text based due to the quiz, I need to be considerate about which typeface I can use. When considering typefaces for my app it was important to keep some considerations in mind:

Legibility

Legibility is extremely important in mobile design because of the small screens that app’s content will be shown on. That is why it is better to use sans serif fonts instead of serif ones.

Weights

This is very handy when it comes to creating contrast and visual hierarchy for your app. Light, Normal, Italic, Semibold, Bold and Extra Bold are the options you should look for in fonts for apps.

Special characters

If your app will have users or foreign language content you must choose a typeface that has special characters designed


From this research I knew that I needed to use a sans serif typeface, and preferrably one that has different weights in order to establish hierarchy within my app.

To establish which typeface would be the best to use within the app I experimented with sans serif typefaces within Adobe and included weight variants (eg. regular, medium, bold, light) when I could. Some typefaces such as PT Sans and Arial were not suitable for using within the app as they did not have variants such as light and bold, so would not provide enough variance between the fonts to establish hierarchy within the app. Instead, one of the other typefaces would be better suited.

I have chosen to use Source Sans Pro as this has a multitude of variants and looks very legible. To experiment further with this I played with the tracking of the letters as well as point sizes and colours.

I think that the typeface looks better with the tracking widened to 20 as it makes the text even more legible and will reduce the impact of the text. As the quiz will have a lot of text in it both within the questions and the multiple answers, it needs to not seem overwhelming to read and scare off the user.