Hard-to-Read Fonts Improve Learning 175
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by
timothy
from the slashdot-design-philosophy-revealed dept.
from the slashdot-design-philosophy-revealed dept.
arkenian writes "Difficult-to-read fonts make for better learning, according to scientists. The finding is about to be published in the international journal Cognition. Researchers at Princeton University employed volunteers to learn made-up information about different types of aliens — and found that those reading harder fonts recalled more when tested 15 minutes later. The article goes on to note a second test in a real school environment: 'Keen to see if their findings actually worked in practice, the Princeton University team then tested their results on 222 students aged between 15 and 18 at a secondary school in Chesterfield, Ohio.'... 'Students given the harder-to-read materials scored higher in their classroom assessments than those in the control group. This was the case across a range of subjects — from English, to Physics to History.'"
Comic Sans (Score:2, Informative)
But Comic Sans still makes you look stupid.
Re:Comic Times New Roman, anyone? (Score:4, Informative)
I think it's obvious (heh heh) that it forces you to think about the content in order to read it, when using a font which requires no conscious thought to process results in more flow with less processing and thus less retention. Perhaps future systems will sense the user's level of interest and change fonts dynamically to keep them learning.
Re:Maybe they're misinterpreting the results (Score:3, Informative)
That word [wikipedia.org]. I do not think it means what you think it means.
Re:don't rewrite textbooks in Comic Sans just yet (Score:4, Informative)
Arial? Verdana, my friend. Arial is a cheap whore compared to the lady Verdana. Guess why Arial was created by Microsoft originally?
It wasn't created by Microsoft. It was originally made for IBM by Monotype in the early 80s, when it was known as Sonoran Sans (similarly, Times New Roman was originally called Sonoran Serif). Microsoft then licensed these from Monotype and renamed them Arial and TNR, respectively. But don't let little facts get in the way of your hatred of Microsoft.
Re:Think bigger! (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Printed or On Screen? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Maybe they're misinterpreting the results (Score:2, Informative)
You comment shows that you should change the font on your browser to something less readable, since you completely missed the part about the research done on highschool children with actual real world material.