6 ms·

Iꜰ ɪᴛ ᴡᴇʀᴇ ᴄᴏɴꜱɪᴅᴇʀᴇᴅ ᴍᴏʀᴇ ʟᴇɢɪʙʟᴇ ᴡᴇ ᴡᴏᴜʟᴅ ᴡʀɪᴛᴇ ᴀʟʟ ᴛᴇxᴛ ʟɪᴋᴇ ᴛʜᴀᴛ.

by LudwigNagasena 3y ago

hyperhello 3y ago
Seeing it uppercase is jarring, but if we were used to it, it might be more legible.
- out-of-ideas 3y ago
  right; its all subjective based on our experiences; if we were strictly exposed to upper-case only from the start, then it would be jarring to see lower-case later on
  - kqr 3y ago
    But now you're subsituting "jarring" for "legible". They're dependent, of course, but not synonyms. What's jarring depends entirely on what we are used to. What's legible depends among other things on how distinctive the shapes look to our visual system.
- Palomides 3y ago
  word shape is extremely important for ease/speed of reading, so making text blocky and homogenous with no ascenders/descenders is empirically worse
bonton89 3y ago
I think parent means compared to all lower case, which would be the other alternative if still constrained by storage. Early screens also were very low resolution and without thinking much about it there is more ambiguity between lower case letters than upper case.
jaipilot747 3y ago
That actually does look beautiful
kqr 3y ago
It could be more legible on low-resolution displays, while being less legible overall. E.g. Verdana and other typefaces with high x-height.
vintermann 3y ago
I'm not convinced. I think I could live with that actually, even today. Certainly if I got used to it. Now that I think about it, I read a lot of comics as a kid, and most of them were in all caps (or at least, they did not have two clear cases). It didn't feel odd at all that all speech in Asterix, Donald Duck or Calvin and Hobbes is in upper case. I bet most people don't even notice. Isn't it weird that we spend so much effort to present text on computers in the way that we got used to specifically in printed books, once upon a time? The work that's been put into font rendering is crazy.
sterlind 3y ago
that's middlecase, isn't it? that's basically the system Cyrillic uses.

Iꜰ ɪᴛ ᴡᴇʀᴇ ᴄᴏɴꜱɪᴅᴇʀᴇᴅ ᴍᴏʀᴇ ʟᴇɢɪʙʟᴇ ᴡᴇ ᴡᴏᴜʟᴅ ᴡʀɪᴛᴇ ᴀʟʟ ᴛᴇxᴛ ʟɪᴋᴇ ᴛʜᴀᴛ.

hyperhello 3y ago

Seeing it uppercase is jarring, but if we were used to it, it might be more legible.

out-of-ideas 3y ago
right; its all subjective based on our experiences; if we were strictly exposed to upper-case only from the start, then it would be jarring to see lower-case later on
- kqr 3y ago
  But now you're subsituting "jarring" for "legible". They're dependent, of course, but not synonyms. What's jarring depends entirely on what we are used to. What's legible depends among other things on how distinctive the shapes look to our visual system.
Palomides 3y ago
word shape is extremely important for ease/speed of reading, so making text blocky and homogenous with no ascenders/descenders is empirically worse

bonton89 3y ago

I think parent means compared to all lower case, which would be the other alternative if still constrained by storage. Early screens also were very low resolution and without thinking much about it there is more ambiguity between lower case letters than upper case.

jaipilot747 3y ago

That actually does look beautiful

kqr 3y ago

It could be more legible on low-resolution displays, while being less legible overall. E.g. Verdana and other typefaces with high x-height.

vintermann 3y ago

I'm not convinced. I think I could live with that actually, even today. Certainly if I got used to it. Now that I think about it, I read a lot of comics as a kid, and most of them were in all caps (or at least, they did not have two clear cases). It didn't feel odd at all that all speech in Asterix, Donald Duck or Calvin and Hobbes is in upper case. I bet most people don't even notice. Isn't it weird that we spend so much effort to present text on computers in the way that we got used to specifically in printed books, once upon a time? The work that's been put into font rendering is crazy.

sterlind 3y ago

that's middlecase, isn't it? that's basically the system Cyrillic uses.