Unit 2 how people read

Reading 2 responses

How people read

80% of people can read worldwide because of that it is a primary form of communication for most individuals. This chapter talks about how those 80 percent.

early on designers would say that reading uppercase letters is harder than reading lower case letters , this is a myth; that for a long time I myself was taught to believe. In reality people perceive all capitals as shouting and they are not used to reading them (thus they read them slower), and because of that we should use them sparingly and in the right context. A good place to use capital letters is for headings and when you need to get someone's attention, or if something is important.

Reading and comprehending are two different things you can read an example in a biology book for instance and read it fine but not actually understand the words or meaning. New words that are not commonly used are assimilated better if used in existing cognitive structures. An example of this is a sonnet by Shakespeare.

From off a hill whose concave womb reworded
A plaintful story from a sist'ring vale,
My spirits t'attend this double voice accorded,
And down I laid to list the sad-tuned tale,
Ere long espied a fickle maid full pale,
Tearing of papers, breaking rings atwain,
Storming her world with sorrow's wind and rain.
Upon her head a platted hive of straw,
Which fortified her visage from the sun,
Whereon the thought might think sometime it saw
The carcase of a beauty spent and done.
Time had not scythed all that youth begun,
Nor youth all quit, but spite of heaven's fell rage
Some beauty peeped through lattice of seared age.

Reading is all about interpenetrating the next word so the words can be scrambled but we can still pick up on them, this means when we read we don't absorb exact letters and words and interperate them later.

Titles and headlines are critical you sort the titles into like categories like color, texture, or type: so make sure you provide a meaning title or headline. But providing a meaning headline or title you are reinforcing what the reader just read. Make sure you are also tailoring to the reading level of you audience. You can do this by using simple words and fewer syllables to make your material accessible to a wider audience.

Pattern recognition helps people identify letters in different fonts. if the font is hard to read the meaning of the text will be lost. Serif and San Serif fonts are equal in terms of readability. Stay away from decorative fonts because they lose pattern recognition and make the reader read slower, it can also deter people from reading it all together. Along the lines of readability choose a point size that is large enough for people of various ages to read comfortably, and even a larger one if it is intended for the computer to minimize eye strain. People also don't like to read text on a page, and sometimes it can be looked at as overwhelming. imagine yourself as a child and when you picked up a book you wanted to see lots of pictures if all you say was text it was probably a big possibility that you put it down. We are all little kids at heart we want something that provides interest and we want something to pull us into the reading this can be done through breaking text up, using bullets, short paragraphs and pictures. provide high contrast between foreground and background  black text on a white background is more readable.

another rule of thumb is line length. People read faster with a longer line length, but they prefer shorter ones. it is suggested when using a shorter line length to have it approximately 100 characters per line. and to have a shorter line length of 45 to 72 characters per line if reading speed is less critical. for multiple page articles use a few columns with shorter line lengths.

I really find it interesting when I have been told something for so long and then hear a different persons opinion or statistic on that subject that differs from mine. Everything that the author says about readability makes since (that might have differed from my original theory), I think after reading this what I came away with it was that I should always question everything, because what the first person says isn't always the right thing.