Another question.
a.. Are the staff and clients you talk to in your organisation predominantly
white English speaking males of much the same age and background?
If yes, then your innovation efforts will be more difficult.
Irene Wong
From: Christine Kent
Sent: Monday, May 30, 2016 11:36 AM
To: austechwriter@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: atw: Re: Typefaces
One thing that is triggering my contemplations on our industry – of which I am
also largely no longer a part, is the course I am putting together on
innovation. It is abundantly clear that something is driving change in our
culture at a rate faster than most can deal with, and we have yet to develop
personal and professional strategies to deal with uncertainty and “novelty”. I
think the technical writers are more than normally challenged by the rate of
change.
I have just come across this list of questions which I find quite useful. There
have been attempts in the past on this list to generate some kind of industry
association, but the simple truth is that we are not a “profession”. A
profession defines its own standards, and we do not do that. We are the rough
equivalent of a secretary or PA – a very skilled writer, but with no personal
input into the work to be done or the quality to which it is done. Our role is
to respond to the demands of those higher on the organisational hierarchy, not
to shape those demands. It is not to operate in a consultancy and advisory
capacity to those who need technical communications that work. How many on this
list have even considered, for a moment, any of the following questions?
Does your business culture support innovation?
· Do you mention innovation in your vision, strategies or business
plans?
· Do you include the importance of innovation when inducting staff?
· Do you have methods or processes to encourage and capture new ideas?
· Do your people discuss new trends or models emerging in your field?
· Do you apply any resources to new ideas?
· Do you reward or recognise people who come up with new ideas?
· Do you encourage experimentation?
· Do you tolerate failure?
· Do you communication and measure outcomes from innovation efforts?
Cheers, Christine
From: austechwriter-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:austechwriter-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Warren Lewington
Sent: Sunday, 29 May 2016 6:41 PM
To: austechwriter@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: atw: Re: Typefaces
I put in an application to go on with the visual communications with respect to
video communication theory with WSU. The academics there were keen. But the
admin people stuffed me around with the application.
I accepted the place in MRES in history with Mac Uni, who bent over backwards
to get applications in – even though their entire IT infrastructure crashed
during enrolment.
So at this stage my career in technical communications may be coming to a
close. I hope so in some ways. As a fraternity we continue to be too fractious
to be competitive and too foolish to recognise the unprofessional image that
portrays beyond our desks. I’m deeply concerned that the fractured nature of
the workplace and insecurity in this industry niche will prevent real
development of our fraternity beyond a curiosity in posterity.
Moreover, I don’t think there is any interest in industry about the visual
communication theories I am interested in establishing standards for. No one
cares whether it works, just whether they have it. Everyone else is doing it in
Australia – why aren’t we?
As it is also cutting edge, and tied into cognition, educational psychology and
so on, there would be some difficulty in finding supervisors. The expectation
is that you have a background in the specialism before you start the PhD now.
The specialisation emphasis would eventually insist on a cognitive educational
psychology background. Especially in Australia now where universities are
commoditising education.
So I figured I might as well do something I am as interested in – but equally
useless to the real world (make no comments anybody), but more personally
fulfilling. What’s more, the history based PhD work will be easier to get
supervision for here in Sydney.
And as for going overseas for the PhD, I’d love to, but can’t for family
reasons at present.
From: austechwriter-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:austechwriter-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Christine Kent
Sent: Wednesday, May 25, 2016 6:46 PM
To: austechwriter@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: atw: Re: Typefaces
Thanks, Warren, for given my “perceptions” and “personal preferences” some
academic credibility.
“Many of us are intrinsically locked into the words and text paradigm and we
need to be thinking better about that – because words and text are on the way
out in terms of ‘natural’ forms of normative communication.”
This supports my presumption that merit is no longer measured in terms of
literacy.
“Younger generations don’t read unless they are compelled to do so.”
I have found that I am joining them.
“Fonts are considered a visual cue and as such…”
When reading something online, we cruise around lots of options and choose to
read only some of them. Rightly or wrongly, aesthetics including font will
hugely influence which sites we choose to read. The article I started this
thread with is written in a large serif font, which screams old fashioned. Even
to me, it tells me the ideas are probably as outdated as the font, and to a
younger person it will instantly repulse them.
I do lots of on-line research to find good resources for training courses I
develop. I cruise on past busy pages, black backgrounds, fonts that are too
large or too small or too cramped or in some other way too hard to read. In an
era where we are spoilt for choice, we will use aesthetics during our original
sift for what we will pay attention to, and our age, gender and level of
computer savviness will contribute to those aesthetic choices.
As an educator I have to be very careful not to alienate my “learners”, so I
have to be very attuned to the “fashionable”, but not gender or age specific.
There is a corporate “fashion” that everyone finds acceptable today, but may
not find acceptable tomorrow.
These days, with instructional design, we are responsible for coaxing learners
to learn. They are no longer expected to be self-motivated, so our choices of
resources are critical. Anything out of fashion will not be read. Equally, any
badly produced or in some way annoying video will not be watched irrespective
of the quality of the content. I have developed an instinct for which resources
I choose to use, and sometimes I do over-ride that if the content is really
good. I am doing a course at the moment on innovation. I have chosen to use
the first web site below, even though it looks old fashioned, because the
content is good for my purposes. I hope that the students will go with it. I
have also chosen to use the second web site below, that is so mind bogglingly
standard corporate that I know it will meet no resistance. Interestingly, they
seem to be using the same or similar fonts, but the “feel” is very different.
http://www.innovationtoolbox.com.au/why-innovate
http://www.innovationmanagement.se/latest-articles/
But I am doing all this entirely according to my own perceptions as there seems
to be very little “common knowledge” informing this conversation. We are facing
the morphing of instructional design, technical writing and web design into a
single and new discipline. The ID methodology is called “blended learning” but
the job of “blended learning, learning pathway designer” does not seem to have
a name that makes the blend of input skills as clear as the blend of output
products. The job and the theory may exist, but if it does, I don’t know what
it is. As far as I know it is bleeding edge and so has no agreed conceptual
language to convey it accurately at this point in time. If the world continues
to move on as quickly as it currently is, by the time the academics have
formulated the language, the real world will have moved on. Under these
circumstances all we have is finely honed “instinct” and “perception”. They may
have been finely honed as a result of a lifetime of experience and conscious
adaptation to change, but the more conscious we are of them, the better they
will work for us.
This is not the first “blended” job I have had. Occasionally I get approached,
based on my LinkedIn profile, by someone needing a particular composite of
skills that does not yet exist as a named job in the marketplace. That is when
my “jack of all trades” background becomes an asset rather than a liability. I
revel in those jobs because I love the creativity that is implicit in creating
the process as well as the output.
Currently there is a huge resistance to ideas of “instinct” and “perception”.
It has been made clear by some in this group that my perceptions don’t matter
and are only worthy of ridicule, but I personally value them very highly.
Perhaps we need to be developing a much more conscious awareness of how we use
them and how we can test, validate and support them rather than dismiss them as
irrelevant. For me, I actually have no choice but to trust them because I am
living, from time to time, unsupported, on the bleeding edge.
So Warren, have you covered this in your studies?
From: austechwriter-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:austechwriter-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Warren Lewington
Sent: Wednesday, 25 May 2016 1:17 PM
To: austechwriter@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: atw: Re: Typefaces
Hi Christine and Peter.
Neuroplasticity is one of the issues we face here with respect to fonts.
Another is of course, that type and text and words are an abstraction beyond
the real world. As we learn visually from childhood, and accommodate new
conceptual expansions of our knowledge by aural and visual experience (and
touch of course), we only then learn to abstract this knowledge into text. We
learn to write words and text narratives last. We learn about the world
visually and aurally first. So what that means is that the images and knowledge
we originally learned without vocabulary and grammar and stored in our memories
are turned into abstract symbols (words and text narratives).
Now the abstraction process came very late in our human development – the
Enlightenment in fact. For the vast majority of people until the early Modern
Period we were all illiterate. We learned by aural tradition using voice, touch
and experiential learning for the vast majority of tasks anyone needed for
their livelihoods. After the early Modern Period, learning adopted the
abstraction process of literacy to teach and educate. It became a de-facto
normative communication form.
So text and words and of course fonts, are always going to be at risk of media
that let the natural, instinctive visual and aural senses we have override the
abstraction of narrative text. Anything that can disrupt this abstraction
process and make it easier to learn something new, will naturally lead us
towards adopting that, or resorting to that before words and text.
Enter video and the natural instinct will be to go for it first, more or less.
Many of our new audiences are inclined to visual media, aural media and not
text and words as a first resort. That of course, is a generalisation which
fits outside and explicitly excludes our extremely complex systems – which do
require complex narrative schemas, descriptors, categorisations and complex
mathematic and scientific literacy.
This is where we technical writers are at the most risk. Many of us are
intrinsically locked into the words and text paradigm and we need to be
thinking better about that – because words and text are on the way out in terms
of ‘natural’ forms of normative communication. Anyone who believes we’re not at
risk is kidding themselves. Younger generations don’t read unless they are
compelled to do so. They go to video first. The ones that do complex reading
are in the minority – that came up two weeks ago at uni during one of my tutes.
Unless we are working in the extremely complex system spaces, our writing jobs
are at high risk.
Fonts are considered a visual cue and as such, because of the rapid adoption of
visual communication media forms like video, and digital animation mediums,
means the choices made about which fonts we choose to use need to be understood
scientifically. The issues here are subliminal about font choices, and they
are poorly researched scientifically. Without strongly reproducible empirical
data based on rigorous study (consistently run over time because these visual
media cues change), we cannot know with definitive certainty what fonts work
and what does not. So far there is very little consistent and useful data
available to us related to this.
For the video audience compelled to learn something via text, font choice will
be critical as it is the first visual cue leading into the abstraction or
textual cognitive assimilation process the reader needs to use to actually
absorb and reproduce the information in the narrative text. Bear in mind to
that the compelled reader is probably not as well practiced at using their
textual cognitive assimilation processes (reading and understanding a text) as
we are. Get used to it. It’s here.
Basically all we can surmise for now is that there will be an automatic
displacement towards less abstract forms of input – namely video formats. In
that case, our font choices are critical to whether we actually can communicate
as are the words used and the way they are crafted together.
And I could write another 30,000 cited and research supported words on all of
this and that would be virtually an introduction.
Font that...
Warren.
From: austechwriter-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:austechwriter-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Peter Martin
Sent: Tuesday, May 24, 2016 3:04 PM
To: austechwriter@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: atw: Re: Typefaces
Phew! Am I trashed yet ? Could get lucky.
If there's anyone out there who actually thinks the scientific method is worth
persisting with, here's talking to you...
(Meanwhile, if everyone is now reading Facebook and Twitter instead of print,
let's examine evidence from those media instead of moaning about change. It's
time to do that, instead of moaning about change or theorising about how Youth
Must Today be Corrupted or somesuch. (Where have I heard that before ?)
If on the other hand you want touchy-feely self-examination and indulgence and
prefer to moan about what has changed in the world, and suggest there is no
answer to anything because of the change, good luck with the Real World.
You're going to need it.
The sad thing is there's so little work done on what actually gets through to
the reader in the form of meaning rather than small recognisable letters. Some
would say the font designers (admirable people on the whole) "own" that part of
the world that deals with letters and sentences and that all answers are
therefore solved (They don't and they aren't.).... Or alternatively, as some
"theoreticians" would have us believe, there are no answers except those which
we (somewhat selfishly) divine for ourselves using our own "taste" as a guide.
This is highly unreliable, ultimately egotistical and frankly, a bit of a
wank.
The world is not fully knowable to us -- but that's no reason to stop trying to
work it out, or to sit in the cave and stare at the shadows on the wall trying
to make some sense of it all.
Those who would believe that "everyone really is just like me, probably" are
doomed to be disappointed. (Want to test that ? Express a strong political
opinion you hold out loud in a pub and watch for the reaction.)
"Put a Helvetica or times new roman document in front of me and I will cringe
with the ugliness of the Helvetica and the mind scrambling fussiness of the
times new roman. I will quickly discover some dishes that need washing up. So
who dare tell any of us we are wrong?"
I won't tell you you are wrong as a reader.
I'll dare to tell you you are in the wrong business if you don't pause and
wonder if it actually turns out that you are alone in the level of your
disgust, and wonder if people you write for are different and like those
fonts, or find them most useful. (After all, most paper books and
newspapers... )
I'll tell you are wrong if you don't care about all that, and pretend to be a
communicator, but ignore the habits of those you pretend to communicate with,
even if they're different from you.
I'll tell you you are wrong if you pretend to communicate and can't work
yourself around to put more value on empirical evidence than on a nice warm
feeling that comes over you when you look at a particular font (It's just a
bloody font!)
Someone may shortly come up with some worthwhile empirical evidence shortly as
to what happens with reader comprehension in different modern environments and
different fonts etc. I wish they would.
When they do, I'm going to be well up in the queue to see how to adapt to that
empirical evidence.
Meanwhile, talking of modern media, I see Amazon has had a nice new font
designed for them, available for use to millions of readers throughout the
world. Bookerly has these little squiggly bits on tops and bottoms of many
of its letters. I think it looks nice.
Maybe Amazon knows something that led it to go with the squiggly bit fonts...
You'd think they might have run some back room tests somewhere.
But If not, it's just another fad, even if I like it.
-Peter M
Sent from TypeApp
On 23 May 2016, at 6:16 PM, Terry Dowling <Terrence.Dowling@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:
And isn’t this the benefit of the computer world and emails and e-readers,
where we can copy things and change the font to our preference.
As Christine indicated, Calibri seems to do a better job of your test words
than your Arial sample, Peter: mneumoric or mnemornic or mneurnonic mininum
All I want is a font that means I don’t miss errors on screen that then stand
out like the proverbials when printed. Yes, and one where I can see the
difference between rn and m, preferably both on screen and on paper.
Terry
From: austechwriter-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:austechwriter-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Bob T
Sent: Monday, 23 May 2016 2:54 PM
To: austechwriter@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: atw: Re: Typefaces
Peter,
I had the same problem, so copied the text to a document and changed the font
to a serif style, Palatino 12pt.
Happily reading it now, printed on paper.
Bob T
