Help us study letter spacing: a 30–60 minute online study

danielquisek
danielquisek Posts: 8
in Type Design Technique & Theory

Hi all,

We're researching how to space type automatically, and we'd really value your eye.

Letter shapes can be measured, but measurements alone don't tell us what spacing people actually find natural. To test spacing methods properly, we need a human reference: real judgements from people who look at type closely. That's where you come in.

How it works: you'll see short type samples where only the middle gap changes. Use the arrow keys to make it narrower or wider (hold Shift for bigger steps), then press Enter when it feels right. There are text and display sizes, and a few practice samples first so you can get used to the controls. There are no right or wrong answers, and it isn't a test of skill. We want your judgement, and we expect different people to choose differently.

A few practical notes:

  • It takes around 30 minutes to an hour, but you can stop whenever you like. Every choice is saved automatically, and you can come back later using your personal link.
  • Please use a desktop or laptop with a keyboard. Phones and tablets won't work for this.
  • You don't need an account, a name or an email address.

👉 Take part in the spacing study

Whether you design type for a living or simply care about how it looks, every response helps. We'll be happy to share what we learn once the study is done. Thanks so much for your time, and feel free to ask any questions here.

Best,
Daniel

Comments

  • Nick Shinn
    Nick Shinn Posts: 2,416
    Spacing and kerning appear to be low-hanging fruit for those wishing to use AI to automate the type design process, absorbing the acquired taste of experienced practitioners.

    Rather like how some scientists thought that the “readability” of typefaces  could be measured, because typography may be specified by metrics (point size, linespace, &c.) and reading speed measured in a laboratory.
  • pavljenko
    pavljenko Posts: 43

    This topic interests me too: I developed Autokerner, a spacing and kerning script for FontLab, and tested it on several thousand open fonts against their own spacing. If I can help with your study in any way, I'd be glad to.

    (with AI)

  • danielquisek
    danielquisek Posts: 8

    Thanks Robin and Simon, these are fair questions, and I should have covered them in the first post.

    The study is run by NC Type. We want to learn what people judge as natural, ideal spacing, using real human judgements rather than measurements alone. We'll use those judgements as a reference to check how well spacing methods match what people actually see across different typefaces and sizes.

    On machine learning: we use Claude to help evaluate the results and calibrate our spacing methods against what participants chose. We're not training a model on the responses at the moment, but we don't want to promise how the data might be used in future, so we'd rather be upfront about that.

    The results will go into a product that will be widely available to anyone designing fonts, not a tool kept for our own use. We know we're asking for your time and your eye, and the aim is for the outcome to benefit the wider type community.

    The study is fully anonymous. You don't need a name, an email or an account, and we only store spacing choices and viewing conditions.

    Happy to answer anything else here.

    Best,
    Daniel

  • Thomas Phinney
    Thomas Phinney Posts: 3,244
    “A product”… which is commercial? Open source? Or…?
  • danielquisek
    danielquisek Posts: 8

    @Thomas Phinney The pricing structure hasn't been set yet. The plan is to keep the basics, including automated spacing and kerning, available to all personal accounts.

    @Nick Shinn That's a fair concern, and it's part of why we're asking openly instead of guessing. We aren't training a model on the responses right now. The study is there to find out what people actually judge as natural and ideal spacing, so the tools we build can be checked against real designers' eyes. Final spacing decisions stay with the designer.

    @pavljenko Thank you, Autokerner sounds very relevant, and testing against thousands of open fonts is impressive. We appreciate the offer to help.

    Best, Daniel

  • Thomas Phinney
    Thomas Phinney Posts: 3,244
    danielquisek said:

    @Thomas Phinney The pricing structure hasn't been set yet. The plan is to keep the basics, including automated spacing and kerning, available to all personal accounts.

    OK... and “personal accounts” are expected to be the lowest tier?
    But you can’t say whether they will be free or paid?
  • Miles Newlyn
    Miles Newlyn Posts: 311
    I tried to help, but on Brave it's so buggy i lost patience.
  • danielquisek
    danielquisek Posts: 8
    @Thomas Phinney Yes, personal accounts would be the lowest tier. Whether they end up free or paid is still open, and pricing will depend on a few things that aren't settled yet, so I'd rather say that honestly than commit now and change it later.
  • danielquisek
    danielquisek Posts: 8
    @Miles Newlyn Sorry to hear that. I went through the whole study in Brave myself without any trouble, so I'd like to pin down what went wrong. What happened when you tried it, and roughly where did it break, on the practice samples or later in the study?
  • danielquisek
    danielquisek Posts: 8
    Slightly off topic, but this is the app we're developing: Inkvar (https://www.inkvar.com/), a new font editor for type designers. I've started a separate discussion about it here: https://typedrawers.com/discussion/5748/inkvar-a-new-font-editor-were-developing. Feedback is very welcome.

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