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

Michael Lewis:
On Wed, 24 Oct 2007 15:37:00 +1000,  you wrote:
> Peter Martin:
>
>> 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 ?
>>
>
> Not me. In fact, even Karen Schriver (_Dynamics in Document Design_, Wiley, 
> 1997)
> relies chiefly on readers' aesthetic preferences. She does indicate that 
> serif body
> text "may" be more "readable", but -- quite legitimately -- suggests that 
> cultural and
> other factors might be at work. 

Yeah but sorry, we could all die "wondering".   What people say they like and 
what they
actually take in are very often completely different matters.   Used to be 
audience surveys
said TV viewers "like" documentaries, but that "liking" doesn't turn up in the 
general figures on 
what they actually watch.  Probably that's still the case.

Wheildon at least did a series of surveys using scientific method, as opposed 
to "feel good"
airy fairy stuff.      He found that for BODY typeface, comprehension levels 
were up to 3 times
higher for serif typeface.   That to me spells something an awful lot more 
important than
either the infinitely vague "aesthestic preference" studies or even vaguer 
speculative
suggestion  that cultural differences may or may not be at work.  (They're 
almost certainly at work,
but who can say how and where and to what extent etc if the simplest tests 
aren't done?) 
Until there's some methodology, this is an Angels-dancing-on-end-of-a pin area.

>I've often wondered whether the typography of the books
> children use while learning to read might influence the outcome.

Interesting speculation.  Why not now check around and find one major English 
newspaper
that uses sans serif typeface as the font type in their new body copy ?   (cf 
classified ads, which
are paid for by the inch/centimeter). Check women's magazines and their body 
copy.
Check the last ten books you read as an adult.   Hmm is this cultural or did 
these people
find something out a long time ago ? 


>
> David Whitbread (_The Design Manual_, UNSW Press, 2001) suggests that 
> serif/sans-serif
> is the wrong question -- different typefaces of different styles excel at 
> different
> applications.
>
Yeah but did David Whitbread actually do any tests to say what excels where and 
to what
extent ?   Or is he just speculating in the net wilderness too ?   Where are 
the readership
studies and statistics on information take up for "difference styles" ?

Wheildon does say that that the font difference is not marked in things like 
headlines...

But he points out (as any newspaper sub knows) that all-capital headings are 
hard to
read.  (The Sydney Morning Herald used to have a rule that at least 3 
sub-editors had to
check the wording of the daily banner poster -- usually in all-caps -- because 
more 
first-draft spelling mistakes occurred there per word than in any other section 
of the paper.)

And wide sections of body type can also affect comprehension. And this was one 
variable also tested with basic methodology.

> Coincidentally, I'll be using passages on precisely this issue from precisely 
> these
> books (and others) as illustrations in my presentation at the ASTC (NSW) 
> conference on
> Friday.

I hope you'll include some basic comprehension test results somewhere from 
someone. 

Otherwise, it's just a religious issue:  (i.e, in the "My contemplative navel 
gazing speculation
is better than yours " etc...) 

--Peter M

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