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I am working on a user interface, and I am wondering what fonts do other software use like Photoshop, Windows, etc use in their interface. They can’t be using Arial and Tahoma, right? This is a web application I am working on, and I can use @font-face.
But what about Unicode support? I would not like to put any limits on i18n.
Some information on fonts used in operating systems:
Windows 3.1, Windows 95, Windows 98 and Windows ME use MS Sans Serif. This is a raster font, and as such it does not play nice with sub-pixel smoothing (e.g. ClearType).
Windows 2000 and Windows XP use Tahoma. It supports a fair number of scripts, but some Asian scripts like Japanese seem to be absent. See also the full list.
Windows Vista and Windows 7 use Segoe UI. Again, here’s the full list of supported scripts.
Gnome uses Bitstream Vera Sans, but this is probably distribution-dependent. A derivate font with more scripts is DejaVu Sans.
Mac OS X uses Lucida Grande.
For a web application, I’d probably stick with the font that the OS and the browser use. Something like this will probably work for most users:
I put the Windows fonts last, because many OS X and Linux users will have these installed, but we want their native fonts to take precedence. The reverse is less likely to happen.
Whatever you choose, use a sans-serif font. On a computer screen, these are far more legible than serif fonts.
If you must use
@font-face, be sure to read the font’s license before you distribute it. From the fonts mentioned above, I think only Bitstream Vera Sans and DejaVu are free to use.