[Sigia-l] Legibility?

[Bill Killam]

This is only one issue.  And "without problems" is an obvious
overstatement and depends on the type of problem being referred to.
People read slower to maintain comprehension, so this statement is more
accurate if it refers to the probability of a person determining the
intended word from a misspelled word, in context, regardless of reading
speed.  Font characteristics affect legibility which does affect reading
speed and can affect the ability to perform many tasks such as error
detection.  For a demonstration of legibility effects alone, try reading
a sentence in all caps using a fancy script font such as Old English. It
can be quite difficult depending on the text chosen.  Single words (such
as company titles in this format) can be nearly impossible.   

Since we read word shapes and not individual letters, it should be
obvious maintaining the word shape, even if other letters are mixed up,
would better maintain reading speed over first and last letter
correctness with the other letters randomized as in the modified version
of the text below.  (The effect discussed here is, of course, why many
spelling errors are never detected in proof reading.)

Aoccrdnig to a rsceerchar at an Eiglnsh uinervisty, it deosn't mettar in
what oedrr the lrttees in a wrod are, the only irpmetont thnig is that
frist and lsat letter is at the rghit plcae. The rset can be a tatol
mses and you can still raed it wothuit poeblrm. This is bcuseae we do
not raed ervey letter by it self but the wrod as a wlohe. cheiero.

But there are other issues to consider.  Word shape for differing
combination of the same letters can be affected by the use of
proportional versus non proportional font.  And hte common reversals of
letters are often obvious ot figure out as in this sentence showing that
first and last letters correctness are not necessary.  From a cognition
standpoint, there are issues of expectation and biases (such as the
anchor bias) that need to be factored in.  Here are two examples.

What wrong with the following sentence...

Jack and Jill went
   went up the
 hill to fetch a
 a pail of milk  

Do you detect the 2 set of double words immediately or just the
incorrect word at the end?

Or, this one.  Quickly count the number of f's in the following
sentences...

FINISHED FILES ARE THE RE-
SULT OF YEARS OF SCIENTIF-
IC STUDY COMBINED WITH THE 
EXPERIENCE OF MANY YEARS

Many people will report 3.  There are 6.

Bill
-------------------------------------------------------
Bill Killam, MA CHFP
President, User-Centered Design, Inc.
20548 Deerwatch Place
Ashburn, VA 20147
email: bkillam at user-centereddesign.com
Work/Fax: (703) 729-0998
Mobile: (703) 626-6318
Web: www.user-centereddesign.com


-----Original Message-----
From: sigia-l-admin at asis.org [mailto:sigia-l-admin at asis.org] On Behalf
Of James Spahr
Sent: Monday, September 15, 2003 1:19 AM
To: Sigia-l
Subject: Re: [Sigia-l] Legibility?


On Monday, September 15, 2003, at 12:51  AM, Listera wrote:

>> we are talking about readability here, not legibility.
>
> Says who?:-)
>
> Since you seem to be interested in typography:
>
> Legibility
> The ease with which text is read in ordinary, continuous reading,  
> usually
> gauged by reading speed and error rate.  Also, Readability.
>
> Typography Glossary - L <http://www.redsun.com/type/glossary/l.shtml>
>

I was referencing a book (the David Jury text that I previously  
mentioned) on the subject that defines legibility as the ability to  
distinguish individual letterforms and readability as the ease of  
reading a passage of text.

He has a fair amount of text that talks about how the two terms are  
related and how typography and can help or hinder legibility and  
readability. Again, I recommend looking at the book if you want to get  
this detailed.

Or, find more respectable online references for your data:

http://www.itcfonts.com/ulc/ 
article.asp?nCo=AFMT&sec=ulc&issue=26.2.1&art=legibility

U&lc is a fairly well know and respected publication in the typography  
profession (even if it is published by ITC).

> Hair splitting?

Don't we always? why else would threads linger here for months? :)


James.

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