atw: Re: Tell the U.S. Marines to Getz Tuft

Brian A Clarke:
On Tue, 23 Oct 2007 20:44:00 +1000,  you wrote:
> Shouldn't we be asking the readability experts who actually have evidence on 
> this sort
> of thing - rather than our chuntering on about how nice it looks? Brian.
>
Yep. Agree, totally.  Although I'd probably prefer "experts on comprehension" 
because
"readability" can be used by some people to somehow pass over the need for 
understanding to be
predominant.  

And so far the only study I have been able to find on what effect fonts and 
layout
have on actual comprehension (as opposed to the "chuntering" on aesthetic 
appearance
etc) has been an Australian one done years ago. by Colin Wheildon, and published
in various forms, but most comprehensively in "Type and Layout" (Strathmore 
Press,
1984, 86, 90,95 and 96 ) which David Ogilvy (of Ogilvy and Mather) described as
as a "milestone" for published works in this area. 

In brief, Wheildon says: for body typefaces, use serif type fonts -- up to 
three times 
level of comprehension compared with sans serif body typeface.   This was not a
question of fashion, but rather a controlled and measured series of tests with 
statistical significance tests applied. 

"Looking clean" and "falling in love" are common responses to various font 
styles,
but irrelevant, Christine.   

You may love it, but if it's taking 3 times as long to get 
the information across, you're risking "pretty" communication failure. 
 
Maybe someone's seen alternative studies using sensible methodology testing 
comprehension as the aim?   

Every time this topic comes up, (as it does regularly) I run a pile of Google 
and other
searches looking for something that updates Wheildon.   I've yet to find 
anything 
that approaches his work.   But <sigh>  here goes again...    Anyone got an 
alternative
yet ? 

--Peter M  




 

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