mini-RANT: Why can't people *read* what's in front of them?
Leonard Erickson
ask *Why* is it that so many people hard such great difficulty reading
what's *actually* on the screen? Why do they "insist" on "rephrasing"
it into a collection of only vaguely similar words?
Until I got into tech support, I hadn't noticed it much except in grade
school. There, I recall noting that *many* people, when asked to read a
passage out loud *wouldn't*. They'd read something that was similar to
the way *they* would have said whatever each sentence was about. At
least that was the case if they understood the sentence. If they
didn't, things either rapidly got odd, or they stumbled *badly* thru
the reading.
At the time I thought it was just odd. These days, running into folks
doing the same with things like errors messages and with written
instructions, I'm rather bothered by it.
My "best guess" is that somehow, rather than "see word, say word" they
*have* to "see phrase, convert to concept, convert concept to speech"
(poorly phrased, but I hope you get the basic idea). In short, they
have to *translate* stuff into their own terms, even to merely read it
aloud!
I can't imagine *how* they could have picked up such a habit, much less
extended it to the *dangerous* habit of deciding that if a group of
words "sort of looks like" some group that they are familiar with, then
it *must* mean the same thing.
And in the modern world, this is downright *dangerous*. People who do
this sort of "guessing" at meanings seem to not even realize that they
*are* guessing. Which means they can quite confidently make the most
horrendous mistakes, instead of stopping and asking someone to explain
the stuff they don't understand. Because they don't *realize* that they
don't understand.
Damn. I wish I could remember some of the horrible examples I've run
into. But I'm sure that folks in tech support recall many of the
*milder* examples where a fairly straightforward error message that
uses "uncommon" phrasing has gotten twisted into something truly
amazing by this process. And the user *insists* that the messages
"really does" say their badly garbled wording.
<sigh>
--
Leonard Erickson (aka Nemo) kal...@krypton.rain.com
"I'll send flowers to your grave."
"You're not going to piss on it?"
"No, I _hate_ standing in line."
mae...@bordeaux.enteract.com
> ask *Why* is it that so many people hard such great difficulty reading
> what's *actually* on the screen? Why do they "insist" on "rephrasing"
> it into a collection of only vaguely similar words?
<snirp>
I will hazard a guess that a lot of them don't actually *have* the phrase
up on the screen anymore and are doing their best to recall what the error
message DID say. This is also a problem, but not a reading comprehension
one, IMO.
maenad
--
__Anna________fun is good!_________BORDEAUX = spamblock__
In theory, theory and practice are the same.
In practice, they are not. -Yogi Berra
---------------------------------------------------------
Bill Branson
>Leonard Erickson :
>> Sparked by another message dealing with tech support woes, I'm moved to
>> ask *Why* is it that so many people hard such great difficulty reading
>> what's *actually* on the screen? Why do they "insist" on "rephrasing"
>> it into a collection of only vaguely similar words?
>
><snirp>
>
>I will hazard a guess that a lot of them don't actually *have* the phrase
>up on the screen anymore and are doing their best to recall what the error
>message DID say. This is also a problem, but not a reading comprehension
>one, IMO.
>
students will ask me `what's wrong with this problem? i can't get
it to work' and i'll ask them to read the problem out loud,
and very often
with the book right there in front of them
they won't be able to read it correctly.....
when they read the problem aloud,
a phrase or two would be left out,
and oftentimes that phrase contains the information
that they need.......
in my experience, people read *and* evaluate simultaneously,
and sometimes the evaluation that's running concurrently with
the reading leads to the reader skipping parts of the
text...........
i'd love to know how people interact with text...
i have a suspicion that it's much more complicated than
just `reading'....
--bill
Rivka
Bill Branson wrote in message <807k1p$arn$1...@vixen.cso.uiuc.edu>...
>in my experience, people read *and* evaluate simultaneously,
>and sometimes the evaluation that's running concurrently
>with the reading leads to the reader skipping parts of the
>text........... i'd love to know how people interact with text...
>i have a suspicion that it's much more complicated than
>just `reading'....
Rivka nods vigorously. "Not just text. To the best of my understanding
(and cognitive neuroscience isn't my field, although I've studied it
some in undergrad and grad school), *everything* gets perceived and
evaluated simultaneously. We're simultaneously engaged in "bottom-up"
processing, in which the tiniest components of what we take in are put
together to make bigger components and wholes, and "top-down"
processing, in which we're perceiving the broad sense of things and
filling in the details using our best guesses.
"Why do we use top-down processing, when - as Leonard and Bill have
both pointed out - we can miss important details? Well, we've got
limited time and resources with which to process the truly
mind-boggling array of *stuff* we have coming at us every minute of
the day. If we didn't fill in some of it automatically, or use
heuristic (rule-of-thumb) rules for predicting what comes next, we'd
be utterly paralyzed."
--
Rivka is ri...@iowacity.net and a fifth-year graduate student in
clinical psych.
"There is nothing to bring people together like a common grievance
accompanied by refreshments. " - Miss Manners
The Polymath (Jerry Hollombe)
|... we've got
|limited time and resources with which to process the truly
|mind-boggling array of *stuff* we have coming at us every minute of
|the day. If we didn't fill in some of it automatically, or use
|heuristic (rule-of-thumb) rules for predicting what comes next, we'd
|be utterly paralyzed."
Which, I believe, is the state autistics find themselves in.
The Polymath (aka: Jerry Hollombe, M.A., CCP, CFI)
http://www.babcom.com/polymath/
http://www.babcom.com/gla-mensa/
Query pgpkeys.mit.edu for PGP public key.
Rivka
The Polymath (Jerry Hollombe) wrote in message ...
>Rivka wrote in message <807rpc$q...@enews2.newsguy.com>...
>
>|... we've got
>|limited time and resources with which to process the truly
>|mind-boggling array of *stuff* we have coming at us every
>|minute of the day. If we didn't fill in some of it automatically,
>|or use heuristic (rule-of-thumb) rules for predicting what
>|comes next, we'd be utterly paralyzed."
>
>Which, I believe, is the state autistics find themselves in.
"That's one theory," Rivka agrees. "Some fascinating studies seem to
show that autistic people seem to lack 'central coherence.'
"For example, most of us would have a harder time identifying familiar
faces if we only saw a small piece of the face. For autistic people,
seeing a small piece and seeing the whole face are equally difficult.
"Autistic kids can put together a puzzle just as quickly if all the
pieces are face-down - they're not helped by the overall picture, the
way normal kids are. And they're much, much better at 'hidden picture'
sorts of tests than normal kids are... because they don't get fooled
by the context of the larger picture.
"Of course, these advantages on certain lab tasks are outweighed by
the vastly greater number of real-life tasks for which a lack of
central coherence is a terrible liability..."
She shakes her head. "I think the new cognitive theories of autism are
utterly fascinating, especially when you consider that it was in my
lifetime that everybody *knew* autism was caused by horribly cold and
intellectual parents.
"Jerry, do you have a particular interest in autism, or is this just
something you came across? Have you seen the data about theory of mind
and autism?"
(And little white letters scroll across the air in front of Rivka:
"Rivka does not have a psychologist license, a license to kill, or a
dog license. But she does have a marriage license and a driver's
license.")
betnoir
information....
Believe it or not, we have a limited range of vision. By that, I mean
that we can only visually process either movement, shadow and light, or
edges of objects. We simply cognitively 'fill in' the rest.
There is a famous abstract painter by name of (I believe) Marc Rothko. He
does HUGE monochromatic murals. So the entire canvas might be painted a
uniform shade of blue, for example.
In order for the human brain to properly process Rothko's art, we have to
'distract' it by occasionally looking away. Otherwise, we will literally
see a blank spot where the canvas should be.
Try staring at a blank wall HARD for about, say, 20 minutes or so,
continuously. Don't be surprised if you find that you cannot 'see' the
wall after a while. Without something in our field of vision to trip our
visual cognitive triggers, our brains have nothing to work from.
--
BetN, Goddess of Pith and Vinegar--NEVER parry with your head
'Every normal man must be tempted at times to spit on his hands, hoist the
black flag, and begin slitting throats'--H.L. Mencken
'To desire the end is to desire the means'--Draka
Noah Singman
>Sparked by another message dealing with tech support woes, I'm moved to
>ask *Why* is it that so many people hard such great difficulty reading
>what's *actually* on the screen? Why do they "insist" on "rephrasing"
>it into a collection of only vaguely similar words?
[respectful snippage]
"Which is why, even when we have our own people on-site at the client, we
insist on being sent screen prints. And our help desk staff know that we
won't even begin an investigation until we get hard copy. We've found this
to be the best way to avoid the frustration you so correctly, and painfully,
identified."
Noah
pel...@centre.edu
kal...@krypton.rain.com (Leonard Erickson) wrote:
> Sparked by another message dealing with tech support woes, I'm moved
to
> ask *Why* is it that so many people hard such great difficulty reading
> what's *actually* on the screen? Why do they "insist" on "rephrasing"
> it into a collection of only vaguely similar words?
> My "best guess" is that somehow, rather than "see word, say word" they
> *have* to "see phrase, convert to concept, convert concept to speech"
> (poorly phrased, but I hope you get the basic idea). In short, they
> have to *translate* stuff into their own terms, even to merely read it
> aloud!
>
> I can't imagine *how* they could have picked up such a habit, much
less
> extended it to the *dangerous* habit of deciding that if a group of
> words "sort of looks like" some group that they are familiar with,
then
> it *must* mean the same thing.
Don't ask me for cites, 'cause I ain't got 'em . . . but I'm
recalling some study some years ago that said most people treat reading
in the way people treat a second language when first learning it. That
is, as you said, instead of "see word, say word," the process is more
like, "see word, translate to English, verbally express concept I
*think* it conveys." Most of the time, this works all right, but some
times, especially in dealing with phrasing or vocabulary they don't
really understand, it comes out just monkey-f***ed.
Now I vaguely, vaguely remember what it was like to comprehend the
written word in this awkward, translated way. I was like that when I
was about three, and stopped reading until I was six. At six, the
letters on the page became *equal* to the language I heard, not just
some lumbering translation, in a flash of mental clarity so striking I
remember it to this day, and from that time forth I enjoyed books in the
same way that fishes are kinda partial to water. I have a hard time
understanding how it can be otherwise. But I am assured that some
people, some of my friends, even, don't *like* to read and that, for
some people, it is a laborious and unrewarding process. If they are
still decoding the written word rather than grokking it whole-cloth, I
can see why.
Of course, there are some teaching techniques (or lack thereof)
which I would like to blame this phenomenon on, but I have no proof.
<further snippage>
> Damn. I wish I could remember some of the horrible examples I've run
> into. But I'm sure that folks in tech support recall many of the
> *milder* examples where a fairly straightforward error message that
> uses "uncommon" phrasing has gotten twisted into something truly
> amazing by this process. And the user *insists* that the messages
> "really does" say their badly garbled wording.
>
*That's* just human stubbornness. Amazing, how even if you
*confront* people with their error, they will insist that they were
right, or meant something else entirely . . .
Izunya
Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Before you buy.
Lee S. Billings
In article <8088bm$6cb$1...@nnrp1.deja.com>, pel...@centre.edu says...
>
>In article <991108.092816...@krypton.rain.com>,
> kal...@krypton.rain.com (Leonard Erickson) wrote:
>> My "best guess" is that somehow, rather than "see word, say word"
>>they *have* to "see phrase, convert to concept, convert concept to
speech"
>> (poorly phrased, but I hope you get the basic idea). In short, they
>> have to *translate* stuff into their own terms, even to merely read
>> it aloud!
>>
>> I can't imagine *how* they could have picked up such a habit, much
>less
>> extended it to the *dangerous* habit of deciding that if a group of
>> words "sort of looks like" some group that they are familiar with,
>> then it *must* mean the same thing.
Datapoint: I'm a very good reader; most of the time if you put
something in front of me it comes out word-for-word as written. But in
a *performance* situation, this can change. I've been reading poetry
from a page and had someone point out that I made a "bardic alteration"
to the words, and literally didn't realize that I'd done so!
But yes, I have also wondered how people could read something off a
printed page in front of them and *say* something completely different.
To me, that's just WEIRD.
>But I am assured that some
>people, some of my friends, even, don't *like* to read and that, for
>some people, it is a laborious and unrewarding process. If they are
>still decoding the written word rather than grokking it whole-cloth, I
>can see why.
When I was in college, I took a French lit class in which we read the
works in the original, not translations. Now, I read French rather
indifferently, and it was an eye-opening experience for me. I've always
been a fast reader with excellent comprehension, and it was just
*incredibly* frustrating to spend 15 minutes on a single page! I still
remember thinking that if *this* was what it was like to be a poor
reader, I could now understand why there were people who didn't read
for fun.
Celine
--
"Art comes from the heart, but the heart is instructed by the culture."
-- Janet Kagan, _HellSpark_
mae...@bordeaux.enteract.com
> something in front of me it comes out word-for-word as written. But in
> a *performance* situation, this can change. I've been reading poetry
> from a page and had someone point out that I made a "bardic alteration"
> to the words, and literally didn't realize that I'd done so!
Wow! Curiouser and curiouser. I was just about to mention being a
performer myself - and I've done/been at a lot of line-readings both cold
and rehearsed, and just *never* seen alterations happening. Manglings of
the tongue-twister or Freudian slip nature, yes. Word play, especially of
a punnish nature, definitely, or inserting current events into the body of
an old work (Gilbert & Sullivan and current political events, most
effectively, IMO *g*). Transliteration to something *else* unconsciously
--- well, all I can say is "Huh! I'll be damned."
> But yes, I have also wondered how people could read something off a
> printed page in front of them and *say* something completely different.
> To me, that's just WEIRD.
I have been boggling at this entire thread. Maybe the people I know and
work with are just weirdos, because this is an entirely new idea for me.
Larisa Migachyov
>
> Don't ask me for cites, 'cause I ain't got 'em . . . but I'm
> recalling some study some years ago that said most people treat reading
> in the way people treat a second language when first learning it. That
> is, as you said, instead of "see word, say word," the process is more
> like, "see word, translate to English, verbally express concept I
> *think* it conveys." Most of the time, this works all right, but some
> times, especially in dealing with phrasing or vocabulary they don't
> really understand, it comes out just monkey-f***ed.
> Now I vaguely, vaguely remember what it was like to comprehend the
> written word in this awkward, translated way. I was like that when I
> was about three, and stopped reading until I was six. At six, the
> letters on the page became *equal* to the language I heard, not just
> some lumbering translation, in a flash of mental clarity so striking I
> remember it to this day, and from that time forth I enjoyed books in the
> same way that fishes are kinda partial to water. I have a hard time
> people, some of my friends, even, don't *like* to read and that, for
> some people, it is a laborious and unrewarding process. If they are
> still decoding the written word rather than grokking it whole-cloth, I
> can see why.
But if they are reading painfully letter-by-letter, wouldn't they be
*less* likely to misphrase what they're reading? It doesn't make too much
sense to me. I am just learning Greek, and so my reading in it is rather
slow/halting at present - the result of which is that I read exactly what
I see on the page, because it takes all my mental energy just to decode
the text. I might misread a word, but I definitely wouldn't misphrase
what I'm reading. Though this might be different in reading one's native
language.
--
Larisa Migachyov
Quaternion Press Publishing House
Have a math question? Ask the Quaternion at
http://www.quaternionpress.com/mathhelp.html
The Polymath (Jerry Hollombe)
|The Polymath (Jerry Hollombe) wrote in message ...
|"Jerry, do you have a particular interest in autism, or is this just
|something you came across? Have you seen the data about theory of mind
|and autism?"
No special interest, and my information is probably years out of date.
The last really interesting theory of autism I recall reading about
suggested that autism was the result of babies (presumed geniuses) who
became conscious/self-aware while still in the womb. This was based on
the idea that their symptoms were very similar to the symptoms exhibited
by people who had undergone long periods of extreme sensory deprivation.
|(And little white letters scroll across the air in front of Rivka:
|"Rivka does not have a psychologist license, a license to kill, or a
|dog license. But she does have a marriage license and a driver's
|license.")
The Polymath earned his Master's in Clinical Psychology in 1980, found
that made him unemployable in the field, took a job as an apprentice
computer programmer instead and has pretty much been out of the pshrink
biz ever since.
(Soprano is currently Chief Librarian at a local MFC mill. I told my
mother she plays piano in a house of ill repute. (-:{ )
John Palmer
Billings) wrote:
>
>Datapoint: I'm a very good reader; most of the time if you put
>something in front of me it comes out word-for-word as written. But in
>a *performance* situation, this can change. I've been reading poetry
>from a page and had someone point out that I made a "bardic alteration"
>to the words, and literally didn't realize that I'd done so!
>
>But yes, I have also wondered how people could read something off a
>printed page in front of them and *say* something completely different.
>To me, that's just WEIRD.
One way it can happen (and this is possibly a completely
different situation) is if you can't keep your eyes on the text that
you're saying. I've read Chris a few jokes off of alt.callahans, and
I find myself substituting phrases because my eyes are on the next
line and I remember 'what was said' but not 'the words that were
said'.
That's more for long passages, though. "Type conflict of
operands" should be straightforward, "General protection fault in
module X of Y" should, also.
Another possibility that occurs to me is that the error message
sounds stupid, or the person thinks that a computer literate person
would know what the error message *REALLY* says, and is faking it.
(Which is a really scary situation. "It says my disk is full." "Huh?
It doesn't say "full or write protected"?" "No, it says my disk is
full." "Huh. . . (later) No, it's saying you're out of memory -
that's RAM, not disk space. Out of memory is different from having
your disk full.")
--
Everything I needed to know in life, I learned in kindergarten. Like: we only
truly die when we run out of love. Strangely, though, giving love replenishes
our supply as much or more than accepting it does.
Louis Adkins
wrote:
>
> Another possibility that occurs to me is that the error message
>sounds stupid, or the person thinks that a computer literate person
>would know what the error message *REALLY* says, and is faking it.
<wince>
Don't forget the lovely people who won't (read: refuse) read an error
message to you.
<irate customer mode>
"Well, you people should know these things! That's what I'm paying you
for, isn't it!?!"
</irate customer mode>
Louis (aka Nicholas)
Nicholas the Bucaneer Hug-A-Holic
"Eventually, the gene pool will clear itself out
until there is just one extremely stupid person left,
and that person will realize that he/she is the
Most Stupid Person On Earth."
Lee S. Billings
mae...@BORDEAUX.enteract.com says...
>
>Lee S. Billings :
>> something in front of me it comes out word-for-word as written. But
>> in a *performance* situation, this can change. I've been reading
>> poetry from a page and had someone point out that I made a "bardic
alteration"
>> to the words, and literally didn't realize that I'd done so!
>
>performer myself - and I've done/been at a lot of line-readings both
>cold and rehearsed, and just *never* seen alterations happening.
Manglings of
>the tongue-twister or Freudian slip nature, yes. Word play, especially
>of a punnish nature, definitely, or inserting current events into the
body of
>an old work (Gilbert & Sullivan and current political events, most
>effectively, IMO *g*). Transliteration to something *else*
>unconsciously --- well, all I can say is "Huh! I'll be damned."
This wasn't "transliteration", it was more like "editing". I dropped a
word out of the line (it was free-verse, so doing so made no difference
to the scansion) and everyone agreed that it made the reading stronger
that way, so we kept it.
Hmmm, that's not very clear. The line as originally written was:
"And everywhere will be called Eden again."
In reading it, I dropped the word "called", and there was general
agreement that it made the imagery stronger that way. But it happened
"in the heat of the moment," and I did not realize what I'd done until
someone pointed it out to me!
>> But yes, I have also wondered how people could read something off a
>> printed page in front of them and *say* something completely >>
different. To me, that's just WEIRD.
>
>I have been boggling at this entire thread. Maybe the people I know
>and work with are just weirdos, because this is an entirely new idea
>for me.
I've heard it happen often enough that it no longer surprises me; but I
still think it's strange. I mean, the words are *right there*!
Joe Thompson
> (Which is a really scary situation. "It says my disk is full." "Huh?
> It doesn't say "full or write protected"?" "No, it says my disk is
> full." "Huh. . . (later) No, it's saying you're out of memory -
> that's RAM, not disk space. Out of memory is different from having
> your disk full.")
In my experience, only a few users know the difference between RAM and
disk in the first place, and use "memory" to refer to either.
Recipe for frustration: explain to a novice user exactly what the diff-
erence between RAM and disk is. Now that they've got it good and clear
in their minds, explain virtual memory. -- Joe
--
Joe Thompson | http://www.orion-com.com/
sp...@orion-com.com | PGP key: Finger joe-...@mindspring.com
AFU Axolotl of Scorn | O- He-Who-Grinds-the-Unworthy
"Sure. Push my buttons. I'm easy." -- Mark W. Schumann, SD Monk
Harley_59
Joe Thompson <sp...@orion-com.com> wrote in message
news:slrn82gi4r...@crowley.orion-com.com...
Snippit
| In my experience, only a few users know the difference between RAM and
| disk in the first place, and use "memory" to refer to either.
|
| Recipe for frustration: explain to a novice user exactly what the diff-
| erence between RAM and disk is. Now that they've got it good and clear
| in their minds, explain virtual memory. -- Joe
| --
| Joe Thompson | http://www.orion-com.com/
| sp...@orion-com.com | PGP key: Finger joe-...@mindspring.com
| AFU Axolotl of Scorn | O- He-Who-Grinds-the-Unworthy
| "Sure. Push my buttons. I'm easy." -- Mark W. Schumann, SD Monk
Ok See if I have it right......
The annalagy is an office
RAM is your desk. when you have more ram you have a larger desk to put
things on and work with.
Your disk (hard drive) is your filing cabinet where you store your work and
the things you do your work with.
Virtual Memory is a card table that you can set up to hold extra work.
How'd I do?
Harley_59
John Palmer
<harl...@Spamtrap.hotmail.com> wrote:
>
>Joe Thompson <sp...@orion-com.com> wrote in message
>news:slrn82gi4r...@crowley.orion-com.com...
>| Recipe for frustration: explain to a novice user exactly what the diff-
>| erence between RAM and disk is. Now that they've got it good and clear
>| in their minds, explain virtual memory. -- Joe
>Ok See if I have it right......
>The annalagy is an office
>
>RAM is your desk. when you have more ram you have a larger desk to put
>things on and work with.
>Your disk (hard drive) is your filing cabinet where you store your work and
>the things you do your work with.
>Virtual Memory is a card table that you can set up to hold extra work.
>
>How'd I do?
That's pretty good, but I think a slightly better analogy is
like this: now, suppose you opened a file cabinet drawer where you had
no files at all, and put pieces of paper from your desk into that
drawer, remembering exactly what papers you put there, and keeping
them in mind as a kind of "these are still on my desk, really, I just
need a place to put them."
Everytime you need a piece of paper, you can either take it
from your desk (which is quick) or reach into that open file cabinet
drawer, pick a piece of paper up, and put it on your desk, usually
while putting another piece of paper in the drawer to make room (which
is a lot slower). . . you're still treating it like it's on your desk,
even though it's in the filing cabinet, because your desk just isn't
big enough.
Harley_59
John Palmer <jpal...@ix.netcom.com> wrote in message
news:38285af0....@news.compuserve.com...
--
Harley_59
Left the Deja thing behind.
To e-mail remove Spam Block
Rick Davis
>Recipe for frustration: explain to a novice user exactly what the diff-
>erence between RAM and disk is. Now that they've got it good and clear
>in their minds, explain virtual memory. -- Joe
You're a cruel, cruel man. ;-)
The folks I have to support are (mostly) all in one building, and
they've been trained to (read: terrified into) not touching anything
until I get there when something goes wrong. Luckily there are a couple
other people at the library who can fix minor problems and who know how
to reboot the Windows machines if I'm not around.
--
Rick Davis Remove .gov to reply
"You've got to find what you like and let it kill you."
- Kinky Friedman
Patrick Wig
Joe Thompson wrote:
> Recipe for frustration: explain to a novice user exactly what the diff-
> erence between RAM and disk is. Now that they've got it good and clear
> in their minds, explain virtual memory. -- Joe
Absent sprays a fine mist of Irish onto the bartop in front of himself. Deciding
(just) not to clean it with his tongue, he leaves it hanging out and waves it
with aspiration at Joe. "That's awful! I've actually tried it once, though I'm
not a computer support guru. It went something like a '90's version of 'Who's on
first'." That kind of thing goes down better even with intelligent
technical-but-not-computer-familiar people if you simply call it a black magic
paradox and leave it alone. Most don't really want to know."
"Thank you for starting my day with a laugh! BOYC?"
--
Absent by name, absent by nature
*Faex delenda est*
Email is spam-proofed: change "one" to "two" to email me, thanx!
Joe Thompson
> "Thank you for starting my day with a laugh! BOYC?"
I think I will, thanks. A bit of Lagavulin, if you please, Mike. -- Joe
Mark A Mandel
: That's more for long passages, though. "Type conflict of
: operands" should be straightforward, "General protection fault in
: module X of Y" should, also.
(SilverBlack respectfully disagrees.) *Should be* straightforward, if the
words and their combination are meaningful to the reader. If you're a
programmer you understand them. How about, say...
(Dr. Whom offers a slip of paper. SilverBlack looks at it, nods "Thanks",
and reads: ) "Velarized voiceless lateral fricative" or "inseparably
possessed illative paucal"?
-- SilverBlack
--
If you're reading this in a newsgroup: to reply by mail,
remove the obvious spam-blocker from my edress.
Mark A Mandel
: *Faex delenda est*
Whoop!
From a co-worker's sweatshirt:
Purgamentum
init,
exit
purgamentum
(For the illatinate:
Absent's sig means more or less "Ya gotta get rid of the shit" and is an
allusion to Cato the Elder(?) tag-line about Carthage, with which he ended
every speech, relevant or not.
The shirt text means "Garbage in, garbage out.")
Lee S. Billings
mam-DIE-S...@world.std.com says...
>
>John Palmer (jpal...@ix.netcom.com) wrote:
>
>: That's more for long passages, though. "Type conflict of
>: operands" should be straightforward, "General protection fault in
>: module X of Y" should, also.
>
>(SilverBlack respectfully disagrees.) *Should be* straightforward, if
>the words and their combination are meaningful to the reader. If
>you're a programmer you understand them. How about, say...
>
>(Dr. Whom offers a slip of paper. SilverBlack looks at it, nods
"Thanks",
>and reads: ) "Velarized voiceless lateral fricative" or "inseparably
>possessed illative paucal"?
If an error message on my screen is gibberish to me, I am still going
to assume that it will mean something to tech support, and read it as
precisely as I can. If I can't pronounce a word, I'll by-ghod SPELL it
for them. WRT your two examples above, if I ran into them in a language
class, I'd go ask the teacher for a layman's explanation (and perhaps a
verbal example, so I'd know what sounds they were).
Matthew T. Russotto
betnoir <bet...@earthlink.net> wrote:
}Something else to consider about how the brain processes visual
}information....
}
}Believe it or not, we have a limited range of vision. By that, I mean
}that we can only visually process either movement, shadow and light, or
}edges of objects. We simply cognitively 'fill in' the rest.
We're not lizards; we can see much more than that. We can see color.
We can see gradations of shade which are not edges (and distinguish
them from those which are edges). We can use parallax and other
methods to determine depth. And probably more.
--
Matthew T. Russotto russ...@pond.com
"Extremism in defense of liberty is no vice, and moderation in pursuit
of justice is no virtue."
Rebecca Schoenberg
:> Sparked by another message dealing with tech support woes, I'm moved to
:> ask *Why* is it that so many people hard such great difficulty reading
:> what's *actually* on the screen? Why do they "insist" on "rephrasing"
:> it into a collection of only vaguely similar words?
The small elfin girl sighs in sympathy. "I work in the computer lab at
the vet school. Now, everyone there is either a doctor, or within a few
years of becoming a doctor. Reasonable, intelligent, logical-minded,
problem-oriented folks, right?
"These are people who are sticklers for exactness and detail in their
clinical histories. They want exact, minute detail on every last facet
of their patients - hour-by-hour histories, measurements to the millimeter
and milligram, and so on ad nauseum.
"Yet, when they come to me with a computer problem, and I ask them to
describe it, the response I get is invariably 'It doesn't work.' Requests
for more detail net me such fascinating and helpful responses as 'Well,
I was trying to do something, and then this message thing popped up and
said something about 'Error something' and it just stopped.' Beg,
wheedle, and threaten as I may, I cannot get anything vaguely resembling
useful information. And they expect me to be able to tell them exactly
what's wrong and how to fix it, and get offended when I ask to see the
machine and have them show me exactly what went wrong...."
-banshee, who has found that 95% of their problems are due to
misspelled passwords of sheer obliviousness
Leonard Erickson
Have you tried putting it to them in terms of "case history"? I'd think
that might actually get improved results if you can make the concept
stick.
> -banshee, who has found that 95% of their problems are due to
> misspelled passwords of sheer obliviousness
Is that "of" supposed to be an "or"? If not, well... lets just say I
refuse to comment. :-)
--
Leonard Erickson (aka Nemo) kal...@krypton.rain.com
"I'll send flowers to your grave."
"You're not going to piss on it?"
"No, I _hate_ standing in line."
Don Paul
>: Leonard Erickson :
>:> Sparked by another message dealing with tech support woes, I'm moved to
>:> ask *Why* is it that so many people hard such great difficulty reading
>:> what's *actually* on the screen? Why do they "insist" on "rephrasing"
>:> it into a collection of only vaguely similar words?
Among the many reasons people do not read what is in front of them, you may
add:
1) Poor choice of typeface and typesize.
San's serif (sans = without - serif = the flying off little bits like wot
you get in Times and Garamond) is far more difficult to read especially in
small type sizes. But designers and folx think that a sans typeface is
modern and groovy... forgetting that it is bloody hard to read, especially
if you are over 45 and visualy challenged.
2) Coloured Type. A headline (or body copy) is many times less likely to be
read if it is in anything other than black on white or white reversed out of
black.
3) Too much copy... reading can be hard work if the subject matter is dry
and boring and the mind automatically shuts down when the eye sees a great
wodge of words that will have to be ploughed through.
Hint: Write in bullet points. Keep sentences short. Use frequent sub-heads.
Talk to the editors in the place...and above all, don't blame the people
expected to read your turgid prose. If you are packaging what you want/have
to say in a dreary manner, it's no wonder they don't "read" what's in front
of them. People are lazy... accept that fact and work your way around it.
In short...don't shoot the messenger... if the message is bad.
Don Paul is d...@1-2-1.co.za
Oscar Tango 121
Relationship Marketing
Cape Town
South Africa
Rick Davis
>Among the many reasons people do not read what is in front of them, you may
>add:
>
>1) Poor choice of typeface and typesize.
>
>San's serif (sans = without - serif = the flying off little bits like wot
>you get in Times and Garamond) is far more difficult to read especially in
>small type sizes. But designers and folx think that a sans typeface is
>modern and groovy... forgetting that it is bloody hard to read, especially
>if you are over 45 and visualy challenged.
Maybe I'm just weird, but I've always found an even, medium-weight sans
serif font somewhat easier to read than a serif font. Back in the BC
(Before Computer) days, one of the things that made me happiest[1] was
finding a Letter Gothic type ball for my IBM Selectric; I hate Courier
with a passion.
[1] I've got that kind of life ...
The Polymath (Jerry Hollombe)
Rick Davis wrote in message ...
|Don Paul wrote:
|
|>Among the many reasons people do not read what is in front of them,
you may
|>add:
|>
|>1) Poor choice of typeface and typesize.
|>
|>San's serif (sans = without - serif = the flying off little bits like
wot
|>you get in Times and Garamond) is far more difficult to read
especially in
|>small type sizes. But designers and folx think that a sans typeface is
|>modern and groovy... forgetting that it is bloody hard to read,
especially
|>if you are over 45 and visualy challenged.
|
|Maybe I'm just weird, but I've always found an even, medium-weight sans
|serif font somewhat easier to read than a serif font. Back in the BC
|(Before Computer) days, one of the things that made me happiest[1] was
|finding a Letter Gothic type ball for my IBM Selectric; I hate Courier
|with a passion.
When Microsoft commissioned a typefont specifically designed for
readability on a computer screen the result was Verdana, which is
sans-serif. It is actually easier to read than the standard, default
fonts -- so much so that you can usually go to a smaller on-screen font
and still read it comfortably. On the other hand, it's readability
derives from unusually generous spacing between characters, so the
amount of information on screen with the smaller font is about the same
as with a larger default font.
The Trinker
"The Polymath (Jerry Hollombe)" wrote:
> When Microsoft commissioned a typefont specifically designed for
> readability on a computer screen the result was Verdana, which is
> sans-serif. It is actually easier to read than the standard, default
> fonts -- so much so that you can usually go to a smaller on-screen font
> and still read it comfortably. On the other hand, it's readability
> derives from unusually generous spacing between characters, so the
> amount of information on screen with the smaller font is about the same
> as with a larger default font.
Ah ha! So that's why I like Verdana. Thanks for the info, Polymath.
BOYC?
The Trinker
--
spam filtered. To send e-mail remove the spamtrap.
The Polymath (Jerry Hollombe)
<383601DE...@vincent-tanaka.spamtrap.com>...
If I may get your next. Adam's Ale for me, thanks.
Randolph Fritz
[Some excellent comments on this, which I want to add to.]
>
>Among the many reasons people do not read what is in front of them, you may
>add:
>
>1) Poor choice of typeface and typesize.
>
>San's serif (sans = without - serif = the flying off little bits like wot
>you get in Times and Garamond) is far more difficult to read especially in
>small type sizes. But designers and folx think that a sans typeface is
>modern and groovy... forgetting that it is bloody hard to read, especially
>if you are over 45 and visualy challenged.
>
"This depends a lot on presentation. I think--I haven't tested
this--that on most monitors a well-designed small sans-serif face is
more legible than a serif face because of the limitations of the
monitor. On paper, on the other hand, I entirely agree with you."
>2) Coloured Type. A headline (or body copy) is many times less likely to be
>read if it is in anything other than black on white or white reversed out of
>black.
"Hmmm...you sure? I think it depends on the colors chosen and the
difference in value. That said, I've seen some perfectly awful color
choices. And of course colorblind people cannot read some
combinations at all."
Randolph
--
"So sit us down, buy us a drink,
Tell us a good story,
Sing us a song we know to be true.
I don't give a damn
That I never will be worthy,
Fear is the only enemy that I still know"--NMA
Lee S. Billings
says...
>>2) Coloured Type. A headline (or body copy) is many times less likely
>>to be read if it is in anything other than black on white or white
>>reversed out of black.
>
>"Hmmm...you sure? I think it depends on the colors chosen and the
>difference in value. That said, I've seen some perfectly awful color
>choices. And of course colorblind people cannot read some
>combinations at all."
May I add to this:
3) Small type on textured backgrounds! I've been doing a project for
the past couple of days which involved more web-surfing than I normally
do in *months*, and patterned backgrounds have become the bane of my
life. Unless the text is in black, it becomes almost completely
unreadable -- and sometimes even then, if the pattern is grey-scale.
Oh well. At least I'm learning important details about HTML design,
even if I'm doing so by the "Web Sites That Suck" method!
Liana Olear
: May I add to this:
: 3) Small type on textured backgrounds! I've been doing a project for
: the past couple of days which involved more web-surfing than I normally
: do in *months*, and patterned backgrounds have become the bane of my
: life. Unless the text is in black, it becomes almost completely
: unreadable -- and sometimes even then, if the pattern is grey-scale.
: Oh well. At least I'm learning important details about HTML design,
: even if I'm doing so by the "Web Sites That Suck" method!
I do a fair bit of browsing, and I have found a collection of tools that
make web surfing slightly less painful. These are small JavaScript
programs that do things like let you change page color, hide images,
shut up annoying music, and do all sorts of other nifty stuff. (I
personally have grown rather fond of single-click shortcuts to searches).
They are called Bookmarklets, and live at http://www.bookmarklet.com .
They are on occasion a touch picky and some of them dislike some browsers,
but when they work, they make surfing much more pleasant.
Liana
The Trinker
"Lee S. Billings" wrote:
>
> Oh well. At least I'm learning important details about HTML design,
> even if I'm doing so by the "Web Sites That Suck" method!
Are you familiar with http://www.websitesthatsuck.com ?
There's also a book out. I think it's a *great* project.
Randolph Fritz
>
>3) Small type on textured backgrounds! I've been doing a project for
>the past couple of days which involved more web-surfing than I normally
>do in *months*, and patterned backgrounds have become the bane of my
>life. Unless the text is in black, it becomes almost completely
>unreadable -- and sometimes even then, if the pattern is grey-scale.
>
"I've encountered these--yuck. As you say, they can be pulled off if
there's enough difference in brightness between the text and the
background--I have, for instance, used a very busy photograph as a
background, but I carefully modified it so that the brightest tones in
the image were 50% gray or darker and used white text. Sigh...much of
this advice would be unnecessary if people would just *look* at their
work. At least half of any visual art is just seeing what's in front
of you."
R.
Scott H. Perlman
>
>Are you familiar with http://www.websitesthatsuck.com ?
>
>There's also a book out. I think it's a *great* project.
>
I like the idea, except that the site sucks.
They specify white backgrounds, and don't specify any foreground
colors. Which when you are set up for dark barkground light foreground
defaults is illegible
-Scott
--
Life is a Terminal Illness, | an apple a day keeps the
Noone has survived it yet. | produce farmers very happy
per...@cgicafe.com | apply disclaimers liberally!
The Trinker
"Scott H. Perlman" wrote:
>
> In article <3836E904...@vincent-tanaka.spamtrap.com>, The Trinker wrote:
> >
> >Are you familiar with http://www.websitesthatsuck.com ?
> >
> >There's also a book out. I think it's a *great* project.
> >
>
> I like the idea, except that the site sucks.
>
> They specify white backgrounds, and don't specify any foreground
> colors. Which when you are set up for dark barkground light foreground
> defaults is illegible
<grin> Have you told them that? I agree that some parts of that
site aren't up to their own standards, IMO, but their basic ideas
are sound, I think. They're quite open (at least in the book) that
even the things they rail against can be done well in the hands of
*some* people, but that their rules and suggestions are geared
to the masses.
Don Paul
Randolph Fritz wrote in message ...
DonPaul uttered
>>2) Coloured Type. A headline (or body copy) is many times less likely to
be
>>read if it is in anything other than black on white or white reversed out
of
>>black.
>
>"Hmmm...you sure? I think it depends on the colors chosen and the
>difference in value. That said, I've seen some perfectly awful color
>choices. And of course colorblind people cannot read some
>combinations at all."
>
As if my career depended upon it.
It's one of the easiest things to test*, either in an ad or in Direct
Mail...
*ie what response did you get?
Coloured headlines and type simply don't pull as well as straightforward
B&W.
And (believe it or not) the purpose of advertising is to sell things...
So we sell things the best way we know how...in B&W
Martin Julian DeMello
> 3) Small type on textured backgrounds! I've been doing a project for
> the past couple of days which involved more web-surfing than I normally
> do in *months*, and patterned backgrounds have become the bane of my
> life. Unless the text is in black, it becomes almost completely
> unreadable -- and sometimes even then, if the pattern is grey-scale.
Somewhere in Edit->Preferences is a little checkbox that lets you override
the background settings - in Netscape 4.7 it's under the Appearance->Colors
section and labelled
Sometimes a document will provide its own colors and background
[] Always use my colors, overriding document.
--
Martin DeMello/zem
Martin Julian DeMello
> They are called Bookmarklets, and live at http://www.bookmarklet.com .
Off by a letter - http://www.bookmarklets.com
--
Martin DeMello/zem