Do Fonts and Font Types Make a difference for Reading?
Do Fonts and Font Types Make a difference for Reading?
By Jim Lundy
I worked at Xerox for many years and when you’re in the imaging business you learn a lot about fonts and typography.
There are many many types of fonts and in the PC era we’ve gotten used to standard ones such as Ariel.
However there is more science to fonts and how pages of texts are displayed. This blog touches on the impact of fonts on reading including new approaches such as bionic reading.
The Impact of Bold Fonts
Bold italic and underline are all ways to add emphasis to a particular set of words in a sentence or in a headline.
Of these, bold can have the biggest impact and it almost always forces the eye to look at it.
That is why so many newspapers, magazines and ebooks use bold font headlines As a way to grab the reader’s attention.
Fonts, Line Spacing and Readability
Believe it or not, there is an art two page layout and how fonts and spacing can enhance the readability of written words. This is particularly true for books and even more true for magazines which are now increasingly fully online.
Manny enterprises have forgotten about the impact of fonts on readability, but that too is starting to change.
Introducing Bionic Reading and TorpedoRead
At least two providers–Bionic Reading and TorpedoRead–have introduced new ways to display texts that feature bold text at the beginning of each word.
Strong claims are being made of being able to read and comprehend text much faster. They basically use holding and brightness adjustments to increase readability.
I did a test using the bionic reading chrome extension and found that I could read extremely fast with very good comprehension. What these tools do is to mimic what your eyes actually do when you’re scanning letters and words for comprehension.
The bold font actually acts as a guide which is why you can often scan a paragraph much faster when the initial characters of the word are bolded.
Better Reading – an Alternative to TikTok?
As I write this blog, I can’t help but wonder if these new tools might make reading more enticing.
However it’s clear that we now have several generations that have become hooked on social media platforms such as Snapchat, Instagram and TikTok.
Bottom Line
For those of us that like to read and for many children this new method of displaying text shows great promise.
If you haven’t seen this technology at work I’d encourage you to try it.
We will be talking about this advancement in text presentation and I’m very optimistic about its future.
This blog is a part of the Digital Workplace blog series by Aragon Research’s CEO, Jim Lundy.
Missed the previous installments? Catch up here:
Blog 1: Introducing The Digital Workplace Weekly Blog Series
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Blog 2: Application Proliferation – Building out Departmental Tech Stacks
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Blog 3: Invest in Sales Coaching and Learning Now
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Blog 4: The Slow Return to the Office vs the Fast Return to Events
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Blog 5: The Shift to Industry Clouds is Here
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Blog 6: The Race to Intelligence and Why Future Revenue Streams Depend On It
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Blog 7: The Common Design Component Contributing to Apple and BMWs Success
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Blog 8: The Art of Sales and Why It Is the Secret to Fast Growth
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Blog 9: The CRM Market Is Now Intelligent
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Blog 10: The Return to Conferences and Why You Need a Plan for 2023
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Blog 11: AI Is Here to Stay! Product Teams Need to Embrace It
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Blog 12: Enterprise Dilema:Employees and Customers Want More Video Experiences
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Blog 13: Collaboration – Proliferation vs One Size Fits all
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Blog 14: By 2025, Team Collaboration Tools Will Overtake Email
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Blog 15: Hybrid Cloud Is the Way
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Blog 16: Product Names – Their Huge Impact & 3 Naming Tips
Stay tuned! We publish a new blog every Thursday.
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