Choosing the most appropriate typeface to convey trust in a

financial website.
Nitish Belut
K0836518
Kingston University

Abstract

This paper reports findings from a study that was carried out to find the most trustworthy
typeface for use on financial websites. User perceptions of the personality traits of 9 common
fonts on Windows and Macintosh systems were studied and the 5 most professional, reliable,
formal, assertive and friendly fonts were short-listed for further investigation. A survey was
then carried out to find the most trustworthy typeface on screen in a financial context. Arial
was chosen as the most appropriate typeface to convey trust followed by Lucida Grande and
Georgia. Qualitative data gave insight into the different emotions triggered by each type on
screen.

1. Introduction

Type used on the screen can affect the reader’s opinion on the content being read and is
often responsible for the user’s first impression of a document (Chaparro et al, 2008).
Moreover, users take very little time to decide how they feel about a website (Brown el al,
2006). While most empirical research on type focus on its technical aspects, little research
has been done on the perceived personalities of typefaces and their intended rhetorical
effect (Chaparro et al, 2006; Mackiewicz and Moeller, 2004).

2. Study 1: Personality traits that convey trustworthiness.

2.1 Aim

Our first objective of the study was to find five personality traits that are most associated with
trust.

2.2 Method

105 participants were given a list of 54 personality traits and were asked to choose 5 that
they associated most with trust. The survey was conducted online and the participants were
aged between 21 and 56.

2.3 Results

The top 5 personality traits were as follows:

Personality trait No of votes

Professional 87
Reliable 79
Formal 72
Assertive 69
Friendly 56
Table 1. Personality types associated with trust
3. Study 2: Typefaces with ‘trustworthy’ personalities

3.1. Aim

Following our first study, our next aim was to make a selection of five fonts with the most
trustworthy personalities. The initial 9 chosen fonts that are common to Windows and
Macintosh systems were: Arial, Comic sans ms, Courier new, Georgia, Lucida Grande,
Palatino, Times New Roman, Trebuchet Ms and Verdana.

3.2 Method

An online survey was carried out with a new set of 115 participants aged between 20 and 57.
Participants were showed 9 different screenshots of a webpage having identical dummy
content but different typefaces. Participants were asked to rate the typeface in each
screenshot with respect to the 5 above-mentioned personality traits using a 4-point Likert
scale was used. We also asked participants to explain their choices. The highest score
(number of votes) of each personality trait was summed and the mean was used as a
measure for comparison.

Since basic trust is different from contextual trust (Jones and Marsh, 1997) we used the
standard ‘Lorem Ipsum’ dummy text to have a webpage that is free of context. Furthermore,
color having a substantial amount of influence on a person’s state of mind (Kargere, 1949),
we used only two colors, namely black as the color for type and silver as the background
color for navigation.
Figure 1. Screenshot from the survey with Courier new and Comic sans ms.

3.3 Results

The highest scoring typefaces were Georgia and Lucida Grande followed by Arial. With
respect to the personality traits, Lucida Grande was perceived as the most professional,
Comic sans ms as the most friendly, Georgia and Lucida Grande as most formal, Lucida
Grande as most reliable, and Georgia and Lucida Grande as most assertive.
 Typeface Average score Rank
Few comments from participants
• professional but with a slight
relaxed feel
Arial 55.8 3
• well recognised font
• too bland
• this is a fun and non formal website
• whimsical nature
Comic Sans Ms 51.0 6
• more for a party invitation than a
business page
• very reminiscent of old-school
Courier New 44.8 9 • not easily readable on the screen
• formal, stodgy
• very smart, clean font
• reminds me of legal paperwork
Georgia 57.0 1
• readable, quietly professional
without being strident
• very graceful
• readable, even, and strong on the
Lucida Grande 57.0 1
page
• a fun, clean font
• stuffy, old-fashioned
Palatino 51.4 4 • formal, professional way of writing
• a little difficult to read
• small and stingy, but professional
Times New Roman 51.2 5 • doesn't really standout
• boring
• less formal
• clear and reliable
Trebuchet Ms 48.0 7
• too well thought-out be considered
friendly
• looks "thready"
• too light
Verdana 46.7 8
• wouldn't be used in a published
journal
Table 2. Average scores and ranks of typefaces with comments from participants

To calculate the ranking of each typeface with respect to a personality trait, only the higher
score between Quite a lot and Very much responses for each typeface was taken into
consideration.

RANK
Personality Trait 1st 2nd 3rd
Professional Lucida Grande Georgia Arial
Friendly Comic Sans Ms Lucida Grande Trebuchet Ms
Formal Georgia, Lucida Arial, Palatino, Times Trebuchet Ms
New Roman
Reliable Lucida Grande Georgia Arial
Assertive Lucida Grande, Palatino Verdana
Georgia
Table 3. Ranking of typefaces with respect to personality traits
4. Study 3: The most trustworthy typeface for a financial organisation’s website

4.1 Aim

The aim of this experiment was to find the typeface perceived as the most trustworthy in the
context of an online financial organisation.

4.2 Method

A survey was carried online involving 98 participants from USA, UK, Sweden and India, all
aged between 20 and 65. A scenario was given in which each participant had to invest
£2000 in an online financial services provider. Participants were then showed 3 different
screenshots of a webpage with highly relevant content. All screenshots had identical content,
except for the typefaces varying between Lucida Grande, Georgia and Arial. Participants
were asked to choose the webpage that they perceived as the most trustworthy for their
investment. They were also asked to justify their choices.

The purpose of the scenario was to simulate real life situations and attempt to create similar
mental states in which users would normally take similar decisions. Moreover, the scenario
discarded other factors that might otherwise influence the choice of the user, hence allowing
only trustworthiness of the typefaces to be compared.

Figure 2. Screenshot from survey with Lucida Grande

4.3 Results

Arial was chosen as the most trustworthy typeface in a financial organisation’s website,
followed by Lucida Grande and Georgia.
 Typeface Score Few comments from participants
Arial 40 • seems to be the most standard and professional font
• solid, sturdy and professional looking
• looks the most basic, online banking tends to be
more basic and easy to navigate.
Lucida Grande 31 • looks most modern
• seems the most crisp and clear which gives a
feeling of serious and trustworthy business
• it just feels cleaner and more professional
Georgia 27 • a traditional and conservative bank would be
trustworthy
• seemed business-like
• most "official" and polished, other two give an
impression of informality
Table 4. Scores of the most trustworthy typefaces and comments from participants

5. Conclusions

Different typefaces have different perceived personalities and therefore designers should
choose typefaces depending on the rhetorical effect they intend to create in the readers.
Lucida Grande, Georgia and Arial have the highest combination of professional, friendly,
formal, reliable and assertive traits. While Arial conveys trust to a greater extent onscreen
than other typefaces in a financial context, Lucida Grande and Georgia can also be
considered as close alternatives.

6. References

Brown, J., Dudek, C., Fernandes, G., Lindgaard, G. (2006). Attention web designers: You
have 50 milliseconds to make a good first impression! Behaviour & Information Technology,
25(2), 115-126.

Chaparro, B.S., Hazlett, R.L., Larson, K., Shaikhh, A.D. (2008). The Instant Impact of
Onscreen Aesthetics: The Effects of Typeface Personality, [Online] In: Association of
Computing Machinery. CHI 2008. Florence, Italy, 5-10 April 2008, Available at:
http://www.chi2008.org/altchisystem/submissions/submission_hazlettr_0.pdf. [Accessed 15
Novemer 2008]

Chaparro, B.S., Shaikh, A.D., Fox, D. (2006). Perception of Fonts: Perceived Personality
Traits and Uses. Usability News, 8(1). Available at:
http://www.surl.org/usabilitynews/81/pdf/Usability%20News%2081%20-%20Shaikh.pdf.
[Accessed 12 December 2008].

Jones, S., Marsh, S. (1997). Human-Computer-Human Interaction: Trust in GSGW, Special

Interest Group on Computer-Human Interaction 29(3)
Kargere, A. (1949), Color and Personality, Philosophical Library, New York.

Kargere, A. (1949), Color and Personality, Philosophical Library, New York, NY., .

Mackiewicz, J., & Moeller, R. (2004). Why people perceive typefaces to have different
personalities. Paper presented at the International Professional Communication Conference,
Minneapolis, MN.