Typography in Survey Data Collection

Text is the primary way that users digest content and accomplish work, so it’s important to use good typographic principles to establish a clear visual hierarchy and to maximize legibility.

The primary font used in SDC is ‘Lato‘.

Font choice

Lato, with its broad range of weights and extensive unicode support was chosen to provide a good balance between legibility, personality and readability. As the majority of our User Interface (UI) is text based, we use weight and size to denote hierarchy and separation between content. Lato’s letterforms also provide a good level of contrast which aid readability on poorer quality displays and for users with visual impairment.

Typographic Matrix

320 321-599 600+

Jupiter

Lato Bold - 2rem/28px

Jupiter

Lato Bold - 2rem/28px

Jupiter

Lato Bold - 2rem/36px

Saturn

Lato Bold - 1.5rem/24px

Saturn

Lato Bold - 1.5rem/24px

Saturn

Lato Bold - 1.5rem/28px

Neptune

Lato Bold - 1.2rem/18px

Neptune

Lato Bold - 1.2rem/20px

Neptune

Lato Bold - 1.2rem/22px

Venus

Lato Bold - 1rem/16px

Venus

Lato Bold - 1rem/16px

Venus

Lato Bold - 1rem/18px

Mars

Lato Regular - 1rem/16px

Mars

Lato Regular - 1rem/16px

Mars

Lato Regular - 1rem/18px

Mercury

Lato Bold - 0.7rem/14px

Mercury

Lato Bold - 0.7rem/14px

Mercury

Lato Bold - 0.7rem/14px

Pluto

Lato Regular - 0.7rem/14px

Pluto

Lato Regular - 0.7rem/14px

Pluto

Lato Regular - 0.7rem/14px

Typographic Hierarchy

The typographic hierarchy provides a logical visual guide to the structural hierarchy of a group.

Typographic weights

Lato Bold
abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz
ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ
1234567890 £$%-_+()!@;:,.?[]{}<>/
Accented Welsh - âêíîôûŵŷ ÂÊÍÎÔÛŴŶ

Lato Regular
abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz
ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ
1234567890 £$%-_+()!@;:,.?[]{}<>/
Accented Welsh - âêíîôûŵŷ ÂÊÍÎÔÛŴŶ

Font weights

  • Bold: 700
  • Regular: 400

Line Heights and Letter Spacing

Line height 1.4rem Letter Spacing 0.05rem/10%

Font stack - Lato, “Helvetica Neue”, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;