2. iPads,
memory
& font
Research from Princeton University has shown that digital material on
iPads written in hard to read fonts has far greater memory retention
and comprehension.
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3. Why?
Researchers believe the greater the visual challenge as far as word
recognition and sentence flow, the more effort it takes for our brains to
comprehend and this effort improves memory retention.
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4. How bigis the
impact of hard
to read fonts
on
iPads
Students were found to have a 14% improvement in comprehension
and recall when they were used.
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5. What toread and
are the
hard
easy fonts to
remember ?
Comic Sans and Itaet are considered harder to read, while fonts like Times
New Roman and Helvetica are considered easier to read.
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6. Examples
easy to read hard to read
{ }{ }
“The fact that we can improve “The fact that we can improve
learning... with an intervention learning... with an intervention
that costs no money and takes that costs no money and takes
basically no effort to implement basically no effort to
means that we can potentially implement means that we can
improve education quickly and potentially improve education
cheaply.” quickly and cheaply.”
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7. What’s
the best wayto
use them ?
Using hard to read fonts in headings, feature quotes in documents and
key takeaways are all good techniques to use.
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8. References
ABC (2011), Breakfast: “What’s that font again? E-books, fonts and memory
linked”
Available: http://www.abc.net.au/rn/breakfast/stories/2011/3230281.htm
BBC (2011), “Making things hard to read ‘can boost learning’”
Available: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-11573666
The New York Times (2011), The Opinion Pages: “Does the Brain
Like E-Books?”
Available: http://roomfordebate.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/10/14/does-the-brain-like-
e-books/
The Daily Princetonian (2011), “Diemand-Yauman ’10 authors font study”
Available: http://www.dailyprincetonian.com/2010/10/29/26748/
Princeton University (2011), “WWS Study Finds Making Material Harder to Learn
Can Improve Long-term Learning and Retention”
Available: http://wws.princeton.edu/news/DOppenheimer_Font/
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