Use fonts available on common operating systems Usability Guideline

Description

Don’t use fonts only available on Macs, but not Windows, and vice versa.

Help

The following fonts are available on both Windows and Macs: Arial, Arial Black, Comic Sans, Courier, Courier New, Franklin Gothic, Georgia, Impact, Lucida Console, Lucida Sans, Symbol, Tahoma, Times New Roman, Trebuchet, Verdana (plus the generic serif, sans-serif, monospace, cursive and fantasy CSS fonts).

Applicable standards

Note: The guidelines.usability.gov website has been down since July 2020, although www.usability.gov is still operating and the PDF version of the guidelines is still available.

Change history

  • 5.28 Dec 2017 Removed due to severe performance problem on large CSS files, and triggers false positives on Google font @imports.
  • 5.7 Dec 2014 Fixed false positive.
  • 5.4 Feb 2014 Don’t fire for downloadable fonts.
  • 5.2 May 2013 Updated priority to match April 2013 version of guidelines.
  • 3.5 Dec 2009 Don’t fire for font:inherit.
  • 3.0 Dec 2008 Updated list of fonts.
  • 1.0 Feb 2007 Added.

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Rule ID: UseGov4.3a