Elonka wrote:
] Gremlin wrote:
] ] The phaomnneil pweor of the hmuan mnid.
] ]
] ] Aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it
] ] deosn't mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod
] ] are, the olny iprmoetnt tihng is taht the frist and
] ] lsat ltteer be at the rghit pclae. The rset can be a
] ] total mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit porbelm.
] ] Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey
] ] lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe.
] ]
] ] Fcuknig amzanig, huh?
]
] Pretty neat! Though it's worth repeating that along with
] first and last letter, that the middle letters do need to be
] there in the same quantities, oxxxe txxxs gxxxt mxxxh hxxxr
] txxxo rxxxd.
]
] (otherwise things get much harder to read) :)

It's not so much the # of letters, but the shape and spacing of them. Humans read by associating a concept or idea with a shape. This is why red octogons mean stop and people can read 133t.

It's important to at least replicate the shape of the entire word, so that things like ligatures (the hang-y part of a lowercase g) and ascenders (the upper parts of things like f, th, and i) get represented in their appropriate scale and position. This is why you can substitute 1 for i or f or t. They all have a relatively similar ascender.

You also want the kerning between letters to be familiar. So that the word 'one' is presented with the appriopriate amount of space between the letters. This is why 'o n e' is harder to read. It doesn't fit with our familiar image of the word. Kerning too tightly can also affect our perception of the word. Look at a lot of David Carson's work in the early 90s. He would manipulate kerning so that words would represent other ideas because the letters were basically on top of each other.

Another important component of this is font choice. We read best what we read most. That's why highway signs are in Helvetica. And newspaper print is in a serif font. The more you see a set of line weights and curves, the more familiar it will be, and the quicker your brain will pick it out and translate it to it's concept.

It's interesting that this example was picked because it APPEARS that this is what a dyslexic person would see when they attempt to read. But that's actually not the problem for people with reading disorders. They suffer from two things. One is that they can reposition characters in the word so that the shape becomes unfamiliar. This is more of a vision disorder. But what is more common is that the pathways in the brain that do the translating between shape and concept are not functioning properly, and therefore they cannot reconcile what they know as a familiar shape and the appropriate concept.

RE: naet ltilte ticrk!