BTW I hope you do not take offense Shari :worried-look:

Usability testing, I know, can reveal surprising results where “expectation” really gets turned upside-down. This is a fact.

That font/typeface limitation does get frustrating from both a typographic clarity and design perspective; even disregarding usability issues.

Thanks for your comments! I’m glad to have your view represented here.

I am going to disagree with you, of course. In the course of testing, it’s really easy to figure out that users click on one font/typeface over another in a text element. If the font/typeface is not a commonly installed one on the majority of computers, I am going to use a graphic image instead of CSS-formatted text. Plus I’ve seen what happens when people override CSS formatting. The text becomes illegible, and that violates the first rule of Web design (easy to read). Making some items into graphic images addresses those issues.

Now if you (and many other SEO professionals and Web developers) actually did usability tests for a living, you would probably come to those same conclusions. Sites can use both graphic images and CSS-formatted text links and perform better or equally well as sites that only use CSS-formatted text links. It’s the lack of testing experience and knowledge about how search engines handle boilerplate elements that makes these conclusions inaccurate.

Your conclusion is inaccurate. Please do not take my disagreement personally. I’ve tested this for my goodness, 10 years. A combination graphic images and CSS-formatted text links (yes, navigational elements as graphic images) consistently performs better…considerably better.