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Visual-syntactic text formatting - cool paper about optimally formatting text

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mouser:
A new process, visual-syntactic text formatting (VSTF), transforms block-shaped text into cascading patterns that help readers identify grammatical structure. The new method integrates converging evidence from educational, visual, and cognitive research, and is made feasible through computer-executed algorithms and electronic displays. Among college readers, the VSTF method instantly increased reading comprehension and efficiency of reading online text, while reducing eyestrain. Among high school students, who read with the format over an entire academic year, the VSTF method increased both academic achievement and long-term reading proficiency by more than a full standard deviation over randomized controls.

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http://www.readingonline.org/articles/art_index.asp?HREF=/articles/r_walker/




See also: http://venturebeat.com/2007/05/10/live-ink-offers-better-way-to-read-text-online/

Jimdoria:
When I see something like this, it makes me realize how superficially we have scratched the surface of the computer's potential. Deep changes are still waiting to be discovered.

Have you ever tried to read documents from the 17th century, with their arcane lettering, spelling, formatting and punctuation? Sometimes I think that's how our grandkids will view the books, newspapers and magazines we all grew up with.

Great find, Mouser. Thanks!  :Thmbsup:

Ampa:
Wow - this looks cool. I hate most typography on the web atm. For a start the text IS too small, and usually spans a width far to broad for comfortable reading.

This new layout theory looks really interesting - I read the samples and was pretty much convinced straight away.

However the $98 price tag for a years subscription seems rather steep for something which at heart is pretty simple.

I also really liked Noutter's Speed Reader that was on the site last year... Wouldn't it be great to have a hybrid of the two...


* Open a file, or copy text to clipboard
* Text is parsed and laid out using VSTF algorithm
* Based upon a speed setting (configured by the user) the page turns automatically
And some refinements...


* Page length is intelligent - so sentences are not truncated. Looks ahead to see if you are near the end of the paragraph / document.
* Configurable font and colours - preferably allowing a full-screen setup like DarkRoom

CWuestefeld:
Yeah, this looks cool. But most people can get a huge gain with one simple operation that their software already supports:

Don't maximize the window!
Maximized windows on a landscape-oriented monitor are bad, bad, bad for reading. It requires far too much effort to locate the beginning of the next row on the left when you finish on the right. And text in the middle of the line is harder to scan because there's so much around it.

mouser:
very interesting point cw.
it might be interesting to think about a plugin whose job it is to locate any columns/blocks of text that are too wide, and reduces the width of the text column.  this would still let you work full screen and on multicolumn layouts, but solve your issue.

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