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Scrambled text and User interfaces:

There is a scrambled text doing rounds on the net. It says, “Aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it deosn’t mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoetnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer be at the rghit pclae. The rset can be a total mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe.” It works better with short words. It works because we learn words by looking at the letters, but read them by looking at the word as a whole.
Similarly interface elements should be both learnable and scanable. Novice users will be able to learn new features and expert users will be able to perform tasks quickly. Buttons for example have text/tool tip and an icon. The text/tool tip makes a button learnable and the icon makes it scanable.

2 Responses to “Scrambled text and User interfaces:”

  1. Scott Barnes
    September 16th, 2003 | 10:33 pm

    Spike (of spikefu.org.uk) has made a CFMX method that will convert text into this:

    More on my blog: http://macrofun.pvpers.com

  2. Raz-L
    September 19th, 2003 | 11:32 pm

    and here’s a little (still a bit buggy) actionscript one
    http://www.raz-l.com/brol/messer/