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

I have a list of online references for studies on readability, font
usage, white space, etc. that I created for the presentation I did at
the 2006 AODC conference (and at the 20906 ASTC NSW conference). The
list is 18 months old now, so some of the references may be out of date.


But it's a starting point. You can get a PDF of that Resource List here:
http://www.cybertext.com.au/services_edit.htm

Rhonda


Rhonda Bracey 
rhonda.bracey@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
http://www.cybertext.com.au
AuthorIT Certified Consultant
-----Original Message-----
From: austechwriter-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:austechwriter-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Peter Martin
Sent: Wednesday, 24 October 2007 1:30 PM
To: austechwriter@xxxxxxxxxxxxx; austechwriter@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: 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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