Microsoft…so close, yet so far off mark…
I believe it is relatively common knowledge that when viewing type online, sans-serif faces are generally easier to read at text sizes. It is also assumed that Times and Arial on not necessarily the best faces for on-screen viewing.
In fact, Microsoft has known this and went out and hired Matthew Carter to develop two incredibly well designed (both legible and nice looking) faces: Verdana and Georgia.
And not only did Microsoft design these faces, but they also made them free. Furthermore, they install with pretty much any MS product. So, unless you intentionally avoid any and all MS products, you probably have two very nice, usable fonts on your system already.
So, please tell me why IE5.5 still uses the following defaults?
