ideas in typography related to experience design

Photo credit: James Mosley

Ideas in typography related

to experience design

Rebecca Cottrell

Legibility: are the letters clear?

Readability: how easy is it to scan

paragraphs set in the typeface?

Context: would you set a layoff notice

in Comic Sans MS?

Photo credit: Meg Rorison

When a goblet has a base that looks too small for security, it

does not matter how cleverly it is weighted; you feel nervous

lest it should tip over. There are ways of setting lines of type

which may work well enough, and yet keep the reader

subconsciously worried by the fear of 'doubling' lines, reading

three words as one, and so forth. Now the man who first chose

glass instead of clay or metal to hold his wine was a 'modernist'

in the sense in which I am going to use that term. That is, the

first thing he asked of his particular object was not 'How should

it look?' but 'What must it do?' and to that extent all good

typography is modernist. Wine is so strange and potent a thing

that it has been used in the central ritual of religion in one

place and time, and attacked by a virago with a hatchet in

“Printing should be invisible.”

Beatrice Warde, The Crystal Goblet:

Sixteen Essays on Typography, 1955

The man who first chose glass

instead of clay or metal to hold

his wine was a 'modernist' in the

sense in which I am going to use

that term. The first thing he

asked of his particular object was not 'How should it look?'

but 'What must it do?”

the container should reveal the contents

Convention is needed in

typography in order for the brain to recognise the shape of letters

(shapes we already know and understand)

Typography

Typography

Typography

Experimental typography by

Nicolas Queffelec

The New Art notion that you can

make letters whatever shapes you like, is as foolish as the notion, if

anyone has such a notion, that you can make houses any shapes

you like. You can't, unless you live all by yourself on a desert island.

– Eric Gill

Sculptor, stonecutter, typeface designer (1882–1940)

Nokia Mobira Senator, 1982

Weight: 21 pounds

Man, c. 1487

Technology changes quickly,

people change slowly

Don Norman’s principles for designing for people

(in ‘The Design of Everyday Things’)

1) Provide a good conceptual model

- allows us to predict the effect of our actions

- mental models are formed by learning a device’s perceived

actions

2) Make things visible

- mental models also determined by interpreting its visible

structure, through visual cues

- natural mapping: taking advantage of physical analogies and

cultural standards, leads to immediate understanding

Don Norman’s principles for designing for people

(in ‘The Design of Everyday Things’)

1) Provide a good conceptual model

- allows us to predict the effect of our actions

- mental models are formed by learning a device’s perceived

actions

2) Make things visible

- mental models also determined by interpreting its visible

structure, through visual cues

- natural mapping: taking advantage of physical analogies and

cultural standards, leads to immediate understanding

Natural mapping, by which I mean taking advantage of

physical analogies and cultural standards, leads to

immediate understanding. For example, a designer can use

spatial analogy: to move an object up, move the control up.

To control an array of lights arrange the control in the

same pattern as the lights. Some natural mappings are

cultural or biological, as in the universal standard that

rising level represents more, a diminishing level less.

Similarly, a louder sound can mean a greater amount.

Amount and loudness (and weight, line length, and

brightness) are additive dimensions: add more to show

incremental increases. (Don Norman, 1989)

More informationType and Typography by Phil Baines and Andrew Haslam

Paul Renner: The Art of Typography

by Christopher Burke

Typography Papers published by Reading University

typophile.com