At 9:36 PM -0700 2/21/99, Lazlo Nibble wrote:
> Remember back when the Mac first came out and everybody threw every font they
> had into everything they wrote?
Um, not everybody. I never did. I was using MacPublisher 1.0 back
before most of you had heard of this stuff, and have been involved in
this stuff ever since. Was even nominated for some awards back in the
late 80's. In fact, back in the late 80's, I was fighting with this
exact problem with OtherRealms. And now, a decade later, we actually
have technologies that allow us to start resolving some of it.
Lazlo, one of the reasons behind OtherRealms was to experiment with
e-mail (or, since it also used Usenet in rec.mag.otherrealms,
ascii-based) text typography issues, especially to look for
alternatives to improve readability and comprehension. Even back
then, it was clear that there were severe comprehension and retention
problems with e-mail, especially for anything other than trivially
short lengths of email (if you go past about 2 screens, roughly 50
lines, comprehension goes to hell. FWIW. I did work on that a decade
ago...).
The answer, unfortunately, was basically "tough". And that's the
state of email today, too. Basically unchanged from a decade ago,
except that the technology is now allowing us to experiment with
stylistic issues, the same way MacPublisher 1.0 or the first releases
of PageMaker allowed us to find ways to take those old, nasty,
typewritten, unreadable, mimeographed newsletters and turn them into
something readable. Now, we *can* in fact style text to help hint the
reader the way you do in traditional typography, but obviously, since
this is different, it's evil.
Just like the early days of desktop publihsing, when everyone had
their favorite strawman why it was terrible. These are all so
familiar....
It's fun to see the same old strawmen recycled, folks. But that's
what this is. "it's different, so it's icky."
--
Chuq Von Rospach (Hockey fan? <http://www.plaidworks.com/hockey/>)
Apple Mail List Gnome (mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED])
Plaidworks Consulting (mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED])
<http://www.plaidworks.com/> + <http://www.lists.apple.com/>
Featuring Winslow Leach at the Piano!
