Re: Learning more from harder-to-read fonts?

On Jun 4, 2011, at 9:23 AM, Charles Foster wrote:
> I think the problem for information designers with studies like this is t=
hat they run so directly against our own instincts and training. For the mo=
st part, we spend our time trying to make text more easy to read and thereb=
y more useable by our clients. The whole notion of disfluency -- of making =
something less fluent, less useable and more ugly =96=96 is an anathema, an=
d sounds like something cooked up by academics rather than practitioners. I=
'm afraid that I simply cannot accept that the production of any sort of te=
aching material in Comic Sans, Hattenschweiler or Monotype Corsiva is a goo=
d idea.

One could dismiss it all as "cooked up by academics" but there -was- quite =
a bit of discussion about twenty years ago about making reading more diffic=
ult to change reading attitudes. I have some real problems with the dismiss=
iveness of both the phrases "cooked up" and "by academics" but I'm willing =
to state that some of Kathy McCoy's claims in -Cranbrook Design: The New Di=
scourse- seemed to be somewhere in the silly-to-horseshit range. The notion=
 that making someone aware of the designer by forcing struggle in reading m=
ight make them aware of the fallibility of the author is intriguing but req=
uires a leap more fit for Soren Kierkegaard or Jesse Owens than for folks l=
ike me who are more limited in our abductive abilities.

I wonder how much "our instincts" are actually instinctive. There also may =
have been quite a bit of training for making things "more ugly" during the =
New Discourse era although the only reference that comes to mind--the back-=
and-forth about Steve Heller's "The Cult of the Ugly"--didn't bring us to a=
ny neat conclusions.

I have deliberately designed work to appear difficult to read (note "appear=
") in order to slow people down when I feared their assumptions would overp=
ower information on the poster. One can also argue that everything we do to=
 call out particulars (whether in the form of subheads, pull quotes) to mak=
e them significant and memorable has the effect of slowing reading thus is,=
 by some definition, more difficult.

> There have been sporadic discussions in this Cafe down the years about wh=
at fonts are best for reading. They have all petered out because as someone=
 always indicates there are so many variables involved -- size, line length=
, leading, spacing, colour etc etc -- that it is impossible to make a set o=
f rules.


Yup. When academic try to cook up information, they are limited by reality.=
 The reality is that it is very hard to change one variable then make simpl=
e universal conclusions based on the effects, especially ones that are usef=
ul to practitioners. =


If "cooked up by academics" is shorthand for dismissing studies by people w=
ithout a broad appreciation of the complexities of typography, then I join =
in the dismissal. It should be noted , however, that practitioners tend to,=
 well, practice. Academics are the only ones we can expect to do the diffic=
ult and non-profitable work of seeking generalizable knowledge.


On Jun 4, 2011, at 10:22 AM, Caroline Jarrett wrote:
> Charles wrote:
>> I'm disappointed that no one else has commented on your post! =

<snip>
> I even started to write a post that ranted about the paper
> somewhat. Then I thought I'd better read it :-)

I haven't had time to read it. I am suspicious of such studies but much mor=
e suspicious of the way conclusions are reported. Thanks for taking the tim=
e and giving us a better view of it. =


People tend to talk about "reading" and "learning" as singular things in re=
porting about studies of effects on reading and/or learning. You have to de=
fine both for purposes of such a study. Unfortunately, people want to apply=
 any findings to every sort of reading and every sort of learning.

> 1. I'm not sure I'm really understanding the statistics.
<snip interesting comments about statistical significance and distribution =
including the following>

> I'd say: it's better to avoid some really bad performances, at the expense
> of a slightly lower overall performance. =



Then Caroline summed up my reaction perfectly:

> What I do know, is that this rather thoughtful and somewhat limited
> experiment has, as usual, become a blanket assertion in the media that
> badly-formatted things are easier to learn from. Which is manifest nonsen=
se.



Gunnar
----------
Gunnar Swanson Design Office
1901 East 6th Street
Greenville NC 27858
USA

[email protected]
+1 252 258 7006

http://www.gunnarswanson.com




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