Harder to read = easier to recall

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/01/14/reading_fonts/

by chrisaycock • 16 years ago

20 11 16 years ago

theregister.co.uk

endtwist• 16 years ago

No, no, no, no, no! This tripe has been circulating the 'net for a while and it really bothers me to see this gain some semblance of acceptance/traction.

Yes, studies show that poorly set text causes you to spend more time reading it because it's hard to read. However, this is not the proper solution to improve recall! This is a through-and-through design problem that can be solved without destroying readability. There is most certainly a visual solution here that would improve recall, but this is not it.

Can you imagine reading an entire textbook or novel that looked like it had been printed on a greasy old photocopier? I certainly can't.

dkarl• 16 years ago

This article reports it as a research result, not as a recommendation. It links to an article that's pretty dumb, but it doesn't endorse it.

joshrule• 16 years ago

So, are you saying, for example, we should get subjects with good copies in these experiments to spend the same amount of time reading as those with bad copies?

Or, do you think it's some other factor?

nervechannel• 16 years ago

The experimental noise band/art collective Throbbing Gristle used to systematically mis-spell certain words in all their writings (e.g. "the" -> "thee", "of" -> "ov") so people would have to concentrate to read them.

This reminded me of that (esp. the "salt:p_pp_r" thing).

KirinDave2• 16 years ago

Some people screamed and gnashed their teeth when one of my blog posts was discussed on HN not long ago, and they discovered I use Museo 500 as my body copy. (article: http://fayr.am/41ns commentary: http://fayr.am/41wI)

But now, I stand vindicated under the cold light of science. :)

(let the downmods and typography-forest-for-the-trees comments begin!)

Prisen• 16 years ago

It's probably less effective when your audience isn't forced to read your text.

KirinDave2• 16 years ago

And yet they acted like reading it was a horrifying, mandatory experience. And then they voluntarily extended that negative experience by talking about it online. It seems inexplicable to me, but there it is.

Seems like another data point in favor of the theory in this article.

higglyndra• 16 years ago

easier to read == easier to understand == less need to recall

TheSOB88• 16 years ago

The more you focus on decoding something, the more neurons are activated, so more connections are made. But are these connections superficial, or are they actually meaningful? They should have asked critical thinking questions rather than easy "recall" crap.

pygy_• 16 years ago

I think that one of his assumptions is wrong:

As far as I know, Comic Sans is actually easier to read than Arial, especially in children and dyslexic people, and I'm not sure that a 60% grey is much harder to read than a 100% black. IIRC, dark greys are more readable than pure black (on screen at least). At last, once again IIRC, in the midrange, font size doesn't impacts readability at all.

I don't have the time to look for citations right know, but I'm fairly sure I'm right.

The author simply doesn't test whether that Comic Sans and Bodoni are less readable, and doesn't provide any citation backing his assertion.

This is somewhat questionable, methodologically.

pama• 16 years ago

This study was previously reviewed by the economist and discussed in this comment of NH:

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1810857

Harder to read = easier to recall

Related Stories