Web Fonts – Pros and Cons
Web fonts have both plus points as well as some drawbacks.
Web Fonts Pros
Using Web fonts instead of relying on system installed fonts, come with both benefits and drawbacks.
Web fonts make websites beautiful, unique and interesting through variety of available font designs. You can make your website more accessible and functional by using a web font. For example, there is no clear identification of small (L) and capital (I) in old system fonts of Helvetica, Arial and Calibri. But many modern web fonts such as IBM Plex San makes clear contrast in both letters.
There may be some kerning issues in old fonts; for example ‘rn’ can be mistaken for ‘m’ and resultantly someone can read porn as pom. However, modern web fonts effectively resolve such issues in text rendering. [RD]
Cons of Web Fonts
On the other hand, there can be some drawbacks of using web fonts. As browser have to download a web font from a remote server on demand, it may decrease website speed. Many users leave the slow websites which may result in increase of bounce rate and negatively impact search ranking.
In some cases, while waiting for the font to be downloaded, browsers delay the rendering of text on the page. Such delay may impact negatively in FCP (First Contentful Paint) and LCP (Largest Contentful Paint).
During text rendering, when primary and fallback fonts swap, it may result in cumulative layout shift – a nuisance for the website user. Layout shift happens because different fonts require different space on the page due to difference of glyph sizes.
But do not worry, if your website is served mostly in English language, it does not hurt page speed and performance except low internet connectivity at user end.
You can read other Dozro article, in which I have elaborated why I chose web font over so-called web safe font.
Which Factors Made Web Fonts Popular?
Following factors, played great role for increased usage of web fonts.
Font Compression Through WOFF Technology
Static Subsets of Fonts
Unicode Range
Free availability of quality fonts such as from Google Fonts
Improvements in overall internet connection speeds
Cross-site caching support for web fonts, especially through CDN services
Advancements in web browsers and their enhanced support for web fonts
Some recent technological advancements in typography will further boost the usage and popularity of web font, such as font variability and incremental patch loading of fonts.
Explore more articles about Fonts, or visit Home Page of Dozro website.
