1. B612: the PolarSys font Laurent SPAGGIARI, AIRBUS
Laurent SPAGGIARI, Nicolas CHAUVEAU, Jean-Luc VINOT
Eclipsecon France 2017, Toulouse, France

2. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Agenda Why a new font Prototyping Design tests
Industrialization 5
Validation tests 6
Product & Next steps

3. Why a new font 1
Main font used
And other fonts used: Verdana, Blériot Airbus, Arial, Courier new

4. Why a new font 1 Different needs to be covered:
Homogeneity
Enhanced legibility (easiness of identification and discrimination of a character or a series)
Comfort
Safety (protection against error)
Different constraints to take into account
Distance, orientation, light, vibrations, color, …)
Specific textual data (codes, abbreviations, etc.)
Define criteria for font usability

5. Studies 1
One academic study on reading (by fixation and saccades, central vs. peripheral vision) and how it is affected by:
Distance/orientation/position to screen
Lighting conditions
Screen (size, type, resolution, …)
Font characters size and forms
Contrast, color, spacing, …
Fatigue, vibrations, …
One technical study on the needs and the technical constraints:
Current fonts used in Airbus cockpits (tech. analysis)
Operational needs and real usage of textual information (observations in sim, during commercial flights and discussions with pilot crews)
One study on the assessment techniques and typographic solutions:
Experiments and algorithms
Discussions with digital font specialist
(école Estienne/Imprimerie Nationale)
Transform criteria for font usability into recommendations for font design

6. Recommendations for the design1
28 Recommendations for the design of the B612 font
On the font and the sets of characters (10 rules)
On the drawing of characters (11 rules)
On the management of spacing (7 rules)
R.1.1 The visual height (angle of vision) of the characters displayed must ensure a good readability of the text. This angle must not be smaller than 15 minutes of arc.
R.2.1 The glyphs (results of the digital font) must be easily visually identified and discriminated in context (refer to need analysis report)
R.3.1 A proportional alignment of the font is necessary to ensure a good letter shaping and the coherence of spacing. Monospacing is preferable for numbers.
Prototype a font

7. Prototyping 2
Exploration of technical and typographical solutions to answer the criteria (legibility, comfort, robustness, …)
Maximize the distance between the forms of the characters
Respect the primitives of the different letters
Harmonize the forms and their spacing
Half bitting
CDS Bleriot Verdana
Gaussian blur
=>
Strengthening of angles/curves
Composition and alignment

8. Prototyping 2 Paper sketch Vector translation Digitalization
Set of glyphs for design test
Test the prototype

9. Calibration of the contrast
Tests 3
Calibration of the contrast
(Landolt rings)
Good answer
No answer
Wrong answer
=> No impact of contact lens, spectacles, lighting conditions, etc.
3 fonts
CDS, Verdana, New
2 distances
(80cm, 100 cm)
appearance time 17ms
Confusion matrix

10. Tests 3 Same trend => tests in lab valid: go for quick design loops
Lab: appearance time 17ms
Sim: appearance time 40ms
Same trend
Good answer
No answer
Wrong answer
=> tests in lab valid: go for quick design loops
V V2
V V2

11. Tests 3 Complementary lab tests Same trend
Letter retrieval/counting
pairings
Same trend
3 thicknesses
3 polarities and 2 contrasts
Once mature enough, industrialize the font

12. Industrialization 4 Discrimination Emphasis (variants) italic
bold
italic
bold italic
Spacing
Identification
with kerning
regular

13. Industrialization 4 Optical corrections with hinting with antialiasing
Validate the font and validation on sim with end-users

14. Validation tests 5
Same experiments as during previous steps New experiments (reading task and information retrieval on displays, pairings and questionnaires + discussion) +
8 Airbus pilots
+ other participants
2 lighting conditions
(night + ¾ lum)

15. Validation tests 5
Questionnaire
Pairing
New
CDS

16. Product 6 587 glyphs New font Punctuation & symbols
monospace
proportional
italic
bold
Italic + bold
regular
587 glyphs
Punctuation & symbols
Accents & ligatures
Greek alphabet
Roman numerals
Subscripts & exponents
Mathematics & measurement
Arrows & directions
General & specific pictograms

17. Product 6

18. Next steps 6 Next steps (2017?) Since 2013:
Used by HMI designers in Airbus R&T (and in other entities)
Next steps (2017?)
“Hinting and kerning” to apply on special characters
“Alpha instructions” to apply on all sizes
New variants to develop (black, light, not condensed, etc.)
Existing tables to complete (Latin extended A & B, etc.)

19. For those about to ask ‘Why B612?’
“I have serious reason to believe that the planet from which the little prince came is the asteroid known as
B-612” The Little Prince
Antoine de Saint-Exupéry