I once had a web site called e-statements.com. It was the late 1990’s, when the dot-com bubble was a couple of years shy from bursting. The buzz in the transaction document industry was Electronic Bill Presentment and Payment (EBPP), which meant many things to many people.  The hype was that companies substitute their nasty paper statements with snazzy web-pages containing all the customer billing information. Here we are, 10 years later and the take-up rate for electronic statements has only reached the low teens. So what happened? Read the rest of this entry »

How many times have you re-focused your eyes, squinting to make out the charges on a restaurant check, or to read the confirmation number on a credit card? It happens to me all the time. My favorite example is my Costco card (Figure 1). Imagine having to transcribe that number onto an online order. If you look extremely close, you will notice that the numbers 6, 8, 5 and 3 in the typeface chosen look similar, making them hard to distinguish. Ironically, if you look at the numbers embossed on a credit card, you’ll notice that they are highly differentiated.

Clients are having the same problems with many statements. Considering that only mathematicians and programmers have a natural knack for reading arrays of numbers, most people need as much visual differentiation as possible (Figure 2). When clients can’t decipher the details, their minds start questioning both the data presented and the professionalism of the organization involved.

With over 140,000 commercially available typefaces, I don’t know why designers continue to choose typefaces with numbers that can be easily misinterpreted by
consumers. I personally believe that many typefaces
are never tested for readability within tables.

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