I recognize that my perspective (as a designer and user experience practitioner) is different than those of the study authors, and that opinions on this front vary widely... and strenuously.
That being said, I find this study to be not only flawed but dismissive to the entire fields of design and typography, which have studied, examined, and refined typography over hundreds of years (admittedly without this level of empirical evidence through much of their history).
The study's authors have negated the validity of their conclusions by choosing for their tests a MONOSPACE typeface that was designed to emulate typewriters, read by participants on a screen. This perpetuates outdated and irrelevant standards by relying on an initial assumption that any undergraduate design student would identify as problematic. I would also question how relevant a test that prevents any head movement is to real-world scenarios, but I understand the desire to isolate eye-tracking results.
I would add that typography is not just a clinical conveyance of words, but includes visual and emotional messages of tone, texture, balance, etc. (which, for example, is impacted by having large holes sprinkled everywhere amidst the text).
I don't have data to refute that study, but I would at least urge strong skepticism if you're basing decisions on it.
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Brian Hewitt
Digital Media
Corning Museum of Glass
Corning NY
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Original Message:
Sent: 07-26-2019 09:38 AM
From: Michele Lyons
Subject: Spacing on Exhibit Labels
Thanks for everyone's two cents! Being a research institution, my boss cites this recent scientific study, which finds that two spaces is better for people used to that, and one space readers aren't inconvenienced by two spaces. So I guess the old two-spacers will have to die out before the one spacers completely win out. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29691763?dopt=Abstract
Michele Lyons, Curator
Office of NIH History and Stetten Museum
National Institutes of Health
Bldg. 60, Room 236
Bethesda, MD 20814
301-496-7695 or
410-474-0483
http://history.nih.gov
Original Message------
Thanks Johanna for the link! I appreciate how you shared the history and the variety of opinions. This controversy hasn't become a big deal at my institution and double spacing is so engrained in me after so many years of "typing".
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Marian Ann Montgomery PhD
Curator of Clothing and Textiles
Museum of Texas Tech University
Lubbock TX
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