How Typography Impacts User Experience in Your Apps

A couple of weeks ago we told you about a new series of articles about app design that the Microsoft Building Apps Team was going to begin to assist app developers in the very important design phase of creating apps.

That first post laid out how design can have a significant impact on the user experience and first impression of your app.

Their plan is to cover app design by focusing in six different areas:

Typography is the subject of their latest post in this series and it is interesting that it arrives as things are ramping up here in San Francisco for Microsoft's annual Build 2016 Developers Conference. When I looked through the Build 2016 schedule of sessions there are quite a few that will focus purely on designing apps.

Of course, Typography is the right place to begin because it brings the words to life on the screen from your app.

Typography is an ancient discipline concerned with how the formation of letters and words affect usability, readability, and beauty. Making the right typography choices can give your app a feel of accuracy, crispness, and polish. Bad typography choices, on the other hand, are distracting and tend to call attention to themselves.

This new typography article from Microsoft will address the following aspects of typography:

They go into depth with each aspect and there are great graphics to show you exactly what each of those terms mean and how it looks when the font is displayed on the screen.

As Microsoft mentions at the end of the article - developers do not need to be experts at typography but familiarity with the subject can make a big difference in the appearance and usability of their apps.

But, wait...there's probably more so be sure to follow me on Twitter and Google+.

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