New Italics Changes
I know this is a really small thing, but today (April 8th) I noticed when restarting Discord that the italics were changed to be much smaller and closer together as well with longer letters. Please put it back. It's very difficult to read, and there's no reason to have changed it.
I know probably no one will look at this, but I would love if someone paid attention. It's a genuine accessibility issue. PLEASE revert it.
Thanks.
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Agreed. The font change is disorienting to read in a sentence and throws off the rhythm that the brain takes when reading. I don't even see it as an accessibility issue, considering I have no disabilities and even I have been getting problems with it.
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If everyone has problems reading it, then it's an accessibility problem for everyone IMO. Just means it should definitely be reverted.
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The way it was before was not using true italics at all — The web browser was just faking it by taking the font and slanting it by some arbitrary amount that no one has any control over. I was always bothered by how if you had slanted text and regular text in the same sentence, the slanted text always got way too close to upright regular text. To me, it always felt more like a weird choice that stuck due to inertia, not an accessibility consideration.
I don't think this post would exist at all if they had just done it right in the first place. Slack has done narrow italics this same way since its beginning. But maybe you're right that it is too narrow. Text is a very important part of Discord, seeing as though it's literally a chat application, so I think it's worthwhile for them to think more about this change.
These narrow italics were sometimes present on some mobile versions of Discord (they’re very wishy-washy about the usage of these italics, which maybe says something about their thought process when making changes like this and perhaps even some internal pushback lol), but I think it works there because mobile screens have considerably higher pixel density and are much closer to your face.
If I were emperor of Discord and I had infinite money, I would probably ask the original designers of the font (Whitney) to make me an oblique sloped roman version of the font (similar to Proxima Nova’s italics) instead of the current humanist-style italics, which are very narrow and frilly (similar to the italics of the font this text is written in, Segoe UI) — or maybe an expanded for legibility version of the humanist italics. That won’t happen, though. The type foundry, Hoefler & Co., would probably never even agree to do it. So I guess one solution would be to revert the change and then use some CSS to add a tiny bit of extra space after slanted text. This would be crude, sure. How would it know not to add more space before punctuation, for example? But I'd argue that it's no more crude than refusing to serve the italic version of the font to desktop users and instead letting the browser whip up a slanted version of the font in real time, which they've been doing since the beginning of Discord.
I would not like this change. I like the look of some well-designed real italics because … well, I just like the way they look. They're fancy. Elegant. A good type designer can make some banger looking italics that are much more legible than what a computer spits out by simply slanting all of the letters. They break up the monotony of a really long paragraph, so when used in moderation they can actually increase legibility. But as it turns out, there are other people who use Discord besides me.
It would also be kinda neat if Chromium had a way to adjust the amount you want the text slanted so that you could choose a level of slant that isn’t as aggressive.
Here's some images so people know what we're all talking about:
Before
After
Consider how the italics do look more in place with the upright text now that they aren't crashing into each other. But also notice how narrow it is. For accessibility, is the spacing issue worth fixing? Also remember that it would look different on a low density 1080p screen, like below:
idk. I think they should've had it this way to begin with but I'm not everyone.Oh and here's Slack for comparison. Since they've had narrow italics since the beginning, no one seems to really mind.
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An accessibility option for choosing whether to render italics as *just* slanted text, or render them as formal italics that changes the font, feels like it would be the best solution that would satisfy the greatest number of users overall in the end.
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Discord needs better text accessibility options in general. If you need a high contrast theme other than the ones generated by your operating system, need to change the font to something like OpenDyslexic, or you need to revert the italics changes, I'm not allowed to even tell you how to do it on this board. And even if you did make those changes to the client, they won't carry over to mobile :/
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I know they weren't true italics - but I don't know if anybody wanted true italics in there. These support pages don't seem to use true italics!
Sure, some people like the new ones. A lot of people don't because they're hard to read. I agree that offering an accessibility option to use the old italics would be really nice to have.
Discord probably spent money on the new ones, they won't want to get rid of them.
EDIT: and of course. As soon as this happens, the support pages start using true italics. I don't like it here either, Discord. I know you changed it quietly. Stop it.
You're definitely right that Discord needs better text accessibility options. There should be options to change the font within the desktop and mobile clients; the italics thing is just one specific issue among many that need addressed. Right now, you can't get a better font for dyslexic readers without breaking TOS.
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The vast majority of people don't like this change. It's so jarring and unnatural. There's nothing wrong at all with giving an accessibility option for this. You already have options for much lesser things like message and letter spacing, so it's not an unwarranted addition.
Discord has been in a repeating pattern in the last year or so of introducing changes absolutely no one is asking for. Some people might like these changes after the fact, but it's clear the vast majority don't, and are vocal about it. So why not just add accessibility options when you do something like this?Clearly effort was put into it, and it's unlikely discord will fully revert the change, nor am I asking for that. But please add an option to switch between oblique and true italics. It's literally one switch for something you already have.
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I thought I was alone in my spite against the new italics. It's honestly not the first stupid update and likely not the last, but it seems like Discord cares less and less about its users each passing day (not as if they cared too much at the start anyway). Why can't they just add an option to revert these changes if they're going to add them without a thought beforehand? I read so many posts begging for a "Reverse Changes" option that were posted 2+ years ago! What the hell Discord? Get your stuff together!
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Honest to god. So glad I canceled Nitro back when they said they were going to add crypto and NFTs. This kind of behaviour definitely isn't convincing me to resubscribe. Blatant disregard for user comfort? Gettin' no money from me, chief.
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The new italics have also ruined years of RP for me and several others. What denotes italics now is *this* and *this *. Notice the space in that last one? Years prior you could stop italics from just putting a space. But no longer. When I contact support about it, they say the program is working as intended. So they quietly changed something that has now RUINED 5 years of RP for me, because all of my "actions" are now italicized instead of actions. That will take years in itself to go back and find every instance of a *action * and edit it to * action *. Which looks wrong when I read it because there is too much space now.
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Well, classically, it seems Discord has decided to ignore all of us. SMH. This is why people are looking for other chat clients. This always happens - a good thing gets ruined by staff making pointless changes, ignoring the userbase, and trying to increase profits.
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