Studies show kids prefer Comic Sans for screen reading vs. common serif and sans-serif fonts (namely, Arial, Times, Courier). They prefer it for both appearance and readability: http://t.co/P3ebZjUi
So, if you're designing for kids, these things seem to matter less. Perhaps there's a better alternative not explored (marker felt, etc.) but there are use cases for these typefaces that adults disagree with for technical reasons.
The study you linked to found that kids read text set in Arial and Comic Sans at the same speed.
The kids did indicate they found Comic Sans most attractive, but their options were limited to Times, Courier, Arial and Comic Sans. I'm willing to bet that if Comic Sans had been substituted by any other cartoon or paintbrush font, the result would've been the same.
Because kids can't read at high speeds yet, sans serif fonts at large sizes work best for them. That's why so many K-8 schoolbooks and illustrated children's books use Gill Sans [1], a much better font for the purpose, in my opinion.
If you want interesting trivia, try the "personal life" section of Eric Gill's Wikipedia article though I warn you, it may well put you off using his fonts.
That bit of trivia about the font creator (as opposed to the font) I definitely didn't need to know. Blecchhh!
I ought to have, (but didn't heed) your warning, and you are so right! Now I am really torn! At what point does one disassociate the person(ality) from the art? (similar to any discussion on Wagner's works today!)
>> it may well put you off using his fonts
I believe you are very right there! I am actually pretty pissed off with the man and his works now!
I've found that most people don't care about this unless you're delivering an extraordinary native experience (ala Path)
A native app is great if you've got a team who can do it well. If you can't, simple PhoneGap-ish apps will suffice. It's a sunk cost in that if you get traction, you'll eventually need to switch over to native to compete: effectively a re-write.
Good question. Not at all. We were exhausted, but we love the project. I still hope that if we come across the right hire(s), we'll revive it. But I'm not going to spend a year of my life desperately hustling to hire (which still may not work) instead of working on the profitable product we already have.
"The hedonic treadmill, also known as hedonic adaptation, is the supposed tendency of humans to quickly return to a relatively stable level of happiness despite major positive or negative events or life changes.[1] According to this theory, as a person makes more money, expectations and desires rise in tandem, which results in no permanent gain in happiness. Brickman and Campbell coined the term in their essay "Hedonic Relativism and Planning the Good Society" (1971).[2] During the late 1990s, the concept was modified by Michael Eysenck, a British psychologist, to become the current "hedonic treadmill theory" which compares the pursuit of happiness to a person on a treadmill, who has to keep working just to stay in the same place."
> And contradicting set point theory, there is apparently no return to homeostasis after sustaining a disability or developing a chronic illness.
I can vouch for that. I was an avid runner, but two years ago I got cartilage damage in both knees that left me unable to run or even walk entirely normal (I'm 22 years old). After surgery this year, I'm doing much better, but I feel like I've lost a part of myself that I won't ever get back short of complete healing... which unless we get some radical new cartilage science, isn't bound to happen anytime soon.
I'm still very happy on a daily basis, just not as much as I used to be.
Do you think your measure of 'happy' changes as well too? It's hard for me to compare my measure of 'happiness' at 22 vs 19 (even when I was 22) because so much was changing in my life at that point. I'm not suggesting you're 'wrong' in your feelings, but for many people, that age period brings about a lot of changes anyway, so comparing 'happy' levels even a few years apart is not a precise science.
UX guy and former management consultant here. I can tell you the grass is always greener...
As a management consultant I was expected to grind out pointless "decks" (powerpoints) all day long. And all night long? Grind out RFP's for new business (which are usually more decks).
UX designers generally have a higher job satisfaction if they are with the right team. However, these jobs are difficult to get and easy to lose. Many of the UX designers I graduated with from HCI school are now looking into front-end dev, visual design and business strategy. Why? Because UX designers can easily become marginalized, and if all you can do is sketch and put together a few basic wireframes, you can quickly find yourself on the periphery of the team. You should see some of the bored/desperate emails I get from colleagues who either have 1) nothing to do or 2) don't get the respect they 'deserve'.
I was speaking with a colleague about Node and he suggested using Coffeescript instead of JS directly for the exact reasons you mentioned.
I'm also coming from Obj-C, C and Ruby background and recently read "Javascript: The Good Parts". I'm still looking for the good parts promised in the title and introduction.
I agree; it's a shortcut for people who know JS, not for people who are learning it for the first time. As soon as you need to use or look into the internals of a library that isn't written in CoffeeScript, everything's going to get unstuck pretty quickly.
I personally happen to disagree. (I have production/team experience with both node.js and CoffeeScript.)
For many learning types, I'd guess it's preferable to leisurely learn JavaScript from the shores of CoffeeScript. Rather than having to deal with all of JavaScript's absurdity at once.
And when you need to read someone else's JavaScript code, you can usually get away with ignoring boilerplate.
Except he didn't. In douchey-business-guy fashion he tries to put an entire community of transdisciplinary people in their place by telling them to be happy with handling the technical side of things, while people like him interface with users, design the product, run the numbers, market and sell it.
I'm a programmer/interaction designer. In design school we were told by professors that "programmers think in terms of X, but designers think in terms of Y. You should never code if your a designer, and never let a programmer design" While they are correct that exercising one muscle will benefit at the exclusion of others, they go to far with the assertion that there exists some cognitive boundary between design and development. The same goes for singular-thinking business guys, like the author, who attempt to dress down engineers who want to try their hand at something new.
I've never met a engineer tell an aspiring business guy "just be a business guy, don't try to code". In fact, most engineers I know will heap praise at business people who bootstrap their idea, even if the first attempt is a bit wonky. This just proves how badly the person wants their vision to be realized.
New years resolution for 2013: stop trying to clip other's wings.
"In douchey-business-guy fashion he tries to put an entire community of transdisciplinary people in their place"
I think his point is also that this type of thing is not just accepted, but encouraged within engineering circles when talking about business people.
But yes, it wasn't delivered very well and the confrontational nature of it will mean that a lot of people who would do well to heed its advice will immediately turn defensive and get nothing from it.
Alternatively, a title bump with static pay could mean increased responsibilities without a corresponding increase in pay, which is also incentive to leave.
So, if you're designing for kids, these things seem to matter less. Perhaps there's a better alternative not explored (marker felt, etc.) but there are use cases for these typefaces that adults disagree with for technical reasons.