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

Rob wrote:

> I'm beginning to wonder if
> we haven't misjudged the
> small print. Based on this
> study, perhaps printing vital
> contract information in grey
> five point type is to help us
> understand it better.

*If* we're motivated to read it.

And when it comes to many Terms of Service agreements for 
seeming-freebies -- Google Mail and Yelp and Facebook, Flash and 
JavaScript and Windows OS updates, and the like -- I expect most of us 
lack motivation.

At some point while reading through the fine print -- say, after 
you've been reading for 15 minutes and the slider is only 1/3 of the 
way down the vertical scroll bar -- most of us are willing to trade 
off rights and privacy in order to just get on with whatever it was we 
were intending to do.

I usually make a valiant attempt to read all the small print the 
*first* time around, but typically reach a tipping point, after which 
I start scanning the text, before I cease viewing altogether ... which 
is when a little designed-in "disfluency" -- especially for key 
contractual notices such as:

	"We claim exclusive copyright over everything and anything
	you post to this site, with the added proviso that only we
	may profit from user-generated content."

-- would probably grab my attention and get me reading again. ;-)

Even so, this kind of reading-to-learn usually ends up a frustrating 
(rather than rewarding) experience, due to the limited choices and 
outcomes which circumscribe learning -- much like voting in California 
these days.

For the past few decades, Californians have been pretty much 
legislating through the ballot box -- voting on a growing array of 
disconnected "propositions" amending the state constitution and 
mandating budget expenditures, etc.

I am one of those dutiful voters who believes that political rights 
carry certain obligations of citizenship, and so I read every word of 
the proposed legislation for each proposition, only to realize (every 
single time! ;-) that it makes no difference whatsoever.

Yes, I have learned the material ... but I still don't truly 
understand it.

What I do know is that there's plenty of political wheeling and 
dealing going on around every proposition. But because I don't know 
how this works, am not a lawyer or lobbyist, and don't want to devote 
my life to the study of California state politics, I'm never going to 
have sufficient expertise to figure out where the loopholes are ... or 
how the various powers-that-be will manipulate even the best-intended 
laws to their advantage ... or whether my yes/no vote will actually 
achieve what I intend it to achieve, or, more likely, the opposite ... 
no matter how much "deep processing" I do.

Yet, I must admit that there's a certain appeal to the idea of the 
voter's pamphlet taking on a ransom-note look with the type!

I expect designers could have a lot of fun with this ... strategically 
setting certain legal boilerplate in Comic Sans (which, for the 
record, I don't think is anywhere near as bad as Haettenschweiler ;-) 
... and dry legal summaries in something sassy like Lourdes or Dyna or 
La Bamba ... and budget numbers in something dreamy like Blue Island 
... and proposition titles in a sweeping pseudo-Baroque like Voluta 
Script, or the mysterious initial caps of Copal, or maybe even 
multi-sensory, textured Braille letters that run hot/cold to the 
touch, or emit odors as you run your finger over them.... ;-)

Just think of all the extra messages you could encode in legislation 
and other contractual language by using disfluent type strategically 
(not to mention the potential employment for starving type designers 
who could contract with the state and law offices around the world, 
earning a living wage for developing new legislative types every year ;-).

One thing's for sure: I would have a lot more fun reading my voter's 
pamphlet, and preparing to do my civic duty, than I do now!

And I expect there'd be a lot more dialogue among voters about the 
issues, too (neighbor X to neighbor Y over the back fence: "Can you 
tell what the hell Prop 37 is about?" ;-).

And I suppose this might hold for ballots, as well, with voters much 
better able to remember what they're voting for, and why.

Who knows? If you did it right, you could perhaps generate as much 
anticipation and enthusiasm for biennial voter pamphlet designs as the 
Superbowl commercials draw in the U.S. ... or at least as much as when 
new designs of government coins and stamps appear ... maybe even 
turning the ephemera of democracy into collectibles and spawning an 
equivalent to the philatelist for voter pamphlets.... ;-)

But unless somebody can raise money for an academic study of this, I 
don't see it happening outside of a laboratory environment or virtual 
world (anyone want to try this out in Second Life?).

There's too much at stake for the plutocracy.

In California, we have protracted political fights over every word in 
the title of a proposition, let alone its legal content, resulting in 
the sort of neutered language and inoffensive design that can be 
stamped with a government imprimatur and passed out to voters.

The point of all this, as I understand it, is not just to inform, but 
to control and curtail "deep processing" on the part of voters -- 
i.e., to rationalize a decidedly partisan, messy and emotional process 
(democracy).


> It could be argued that
> some hospital forms do involve
> learning of the same kind you
> might find in a classroom.

You're right.

And because of the great respect I have for some of the talented folks 
on this list who design forms, I've been telling some equally talented 
physicians I know for a while now that it's possible to design forms 
for, say, a surgical procedure, that would move beyond the usual CYA 
documents geared at protecting institutions and managing administrivia 
(Conrad's inspired coinage ;-).

One of my dreams is to develop surgical permissions forms for cancer 
patients that become an enriching learning experience for all who use 
them.

I'm thinking here of "use" in its broadest and most inclusive sense, 
encompassing not only the initial design process -- which, as we all 
know, is every bit as educational as it is creative and satisfying, at 
least when done right! -- but also subsequent processing & review (of 
completed forms).

It seems to me that medical forms can, and should, serve as discussion 
aids -- used collaboratively to educate patients and health care 
providers alike, about complicated medical options and trade-offs.

I certainly see how type could play an integral role in this, 
especially as medical communications transform from institutional 
monologue into a dialogue better suited to the changing nature of 
expert-lay relations and customized health-care delivery systems in a 
digital age -- ergo, requiring a whole new look-and-feel, able to 
artfully combine the professional and the personal, the general and 
the particular.

But type alone will not foment the educational revolution we seek 
(which is my real objection to the Princeton study Susan pointed us to).


> Mind you, being offered
> Comic Sans as one of the
> choices for my father's
> funeral did make me wonder
> whether font licenses
> shouldn't require a test,
> like driving licenses do....

<VBG>

What a smart idea!

Any risk-taking entrepreneurial type designers out there willing to 
give it a try?

(Here's a thought: You could even turn the whole font license into an 
artistic type specimen for the foundry ... poster size! ;-)

Deborah
_____

Deborah Taylor-Pearce
[email protected]

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