You’re building a website, putting together a document, or mocking up a design – and without a second thought, you reach for a familiar font. Arial. Tahoma. Times New Roman. Easy.
Barely anyone gives it a second thought.
But according to new research from digital design studio Kraam, those everyday choices could be quietly working against you.
Their latest insight reveals the most disliked fonts from a professional design perspective – not because they’re obscure or gimmicky – but because they’re too familiar, often used without considering how they impact readability, perception, and user experience.
The Most Hated Fonts People Still Use Anyway
Kraam’s design team analysed widely used fonts across key principles including:
- Proportions – how balanced and readable the overall letter shapes are
- Stroke consistency – how controlled and consistent the line weight feels
- Apertures & spacing – how open and easy the characters are to read
- Distinguishability – how clearly similar characters can be told apart
- Structural consistency – how well the font works as a cohesive system
Each font was then given a score out of 10 (50 total) for each criterion and judged accordingly.
Here are the scores for the worst performers.
1. Arial Narrow – Score: 30/50
Arial Narrow, scoring the lowest of all, has one core issue; its compressed structure. The reduced character width pushes letters tightly together, limiting the natural spacing the eye relies on to scan text comfortably. This creates a visually cramped experience, particularly across longer passages.
On a website, that compression becomes a usability problem. Users tend to scan rather than read in detail, and tightly packed text slows that process down.
On smaller screens, the lack of spacing can cause characters to blur together, increasing effort and reducing clarity – both of which can impact engagement and time on page.
2. Microsoft Sans Serif – Score: 31/50
Microsoft Sans Serif lacks refinement in its proportions and spacing, giving it a slightly unbalanced, utilitarian feel. It was designed for older system environments, and that legacy shows in how it renders today.
From a web perspective, this translates into a subtle but important issue – perceived quality. Even if the text is readable, the font can make a site feel dated or less polished. That perception can influence how users judge credibility, particularly on first impressions.
3. Century Gothic – Score: 32/50
Century Gothic’s geometric design relies on near-perfect circles and uniform strokes, which reduces distinction between individual letterforms. This can make words feel visually repetitive and slightly harder to process quickly.
In practice, this affects how efficiently users can scan content. Its wide proportions also mean fewer words per line, increasing scroll depth and breaking reading flow, especially on mobile. What looks clean in isolation can become inefficient in real-world layouts.
4. Tahoma – Score: 33/50
Tahoma features thick, sturdy letterforms and relatively tight spacing, which can create a dense, heavy appearance. While functional, it lacks the openness that supports comfortable reading over longer stretches of text.
On websites, this density can feel overwhelming – particularly on content-heavy pages. When text blocks appear visually heavy, users are less likely to engage with them, making it harder to guide attention and establish clear content hierarchy.
5. Arial – Score: 34/50
Arial’s neutral structure and minimal contrast make it highly versatile, but also visually unremarkable. It lacks the subtle characteristics that help guide the eye or create rhythm across text.
From a usability standpoint, it performs adequately – but doesn’t enhance the reading experience. On websites, this often results in content that feels generic. In competitive digital environments, that lack of distinction can impact both brand perception and user trust.
6. Trebuchet MS – Score: 35/50
Trebuchet MS introduces more personality through its varied letterforms, but this comes at the cost of consistency. Some characters feel slightly exaggerated, which can interrupt the visual rhythm of text.
In longer passages, this inconsistency can subtly disrupt reading flow. While it remains readable, it’s less predictable than more modern sans-serif fonts – which can affect how smoothly users move through content on a page.
7. Times New Roman – Score: 36/50
Times New Roman is defined by its high stroke contrast and tight spacing, both of which work well in print. On screens, however, these features can reduce clarity, particularly at smaller sizes.
For websites, this creates friction in scanning behaviour. Users tend to skim content quickly, and fonts that require more focus to parse can slow that process down. It can also feel out of place in modern UI design, where cleaner, simpler typography is expected.
8. Verdana – Score: 37/50
Verdana’s large x-height and generous spacing improve legibility, giving it a clear and accessible feel. However, this comes with a trade-off: it occupies more space than necessary.
On a website, that inefficiency can impact layout. Fewer words fit within a given space, leading to longer pages and increased scrolling. While still readable, it’s less optimised compared to newer fonts that balance clarity with space efficiency.
9. Georgia – Score: 38/50
Georgia offers a more refined serif structure, with balanced proportions and strong readability. However, its traditional design can feel slightly out of step with modern digital aesthetics.
On websites, this can affect how current or aligned a brand feels. While it performs well in editorial contexts, it’s not always the best fit for interfaces or conversion-focused pages where speed and clarity take priority.
10. Candara – Score: 39/50
Candara features smooth curves and open spacing, which support a comfortable reading experience. Structurally, it avoids many of the issues seen in lower-ranked fonts.
However, it lacks strong defining characteristics. On a website, that means it won’t hinder usability, but it also won’t actively support hierarchy, emphasis, or brand identity. It performs adequately but doesn’t add much to the overall effectiveness of the design.
Why This Matters for Your Website
Across all ten fonts, the same issues keep appearing; cramped spacing, inconsistent proportions, weak hierarchy, and outdated structural systems.
Individually, these flaws might seem minor but together, they shape how users experience your website, often subconsciously influencing whether they stay, trust your content, or leave.
Typography isn’t just about how something looks – it’s about how it works.
To avoid falling into the pitfalls of weak and outdated fonts, Kraam advise choosing styles designed for digital readability, maintaining text consistency across a site, testing typography across devices and screen sizes and prioritising open spacing and clear letterforms.
They also recommend avoiding condensed fonts for body text, mixing too many conflicting styles, overlooking spacing, hierarchy and structure, and defaulting to system fonts without considering brand identity.
As Kraam’s Senior Designer, Keith Blues, explains: “Typography is one of the most important parts of digital design because it directly affects how people consume information.
“If text is hard to read or feels visually off, users won’t spend time figuring out why – they’ll just disengage.”