Guide for screen body text

Hope I could have time to build this... I have an idea to build guide body text on website itself. However, I could manage my time to create it. My idea come from this website called twopaperdolls.com
in this website, they have interesting overlay from the background and other layer (which I thought it could be my guide for web) and the background would be other website. I think if the user can type any URL in the box (that i could provide in my website) the background would change into other web, but the guide would stay there. Here is what the website look like:

quotes of the day!

this quote is just reflect my progress! for the final cheat posters, it took me almost a week.. just for get into the right design! wuaaaaah! and took me 1 day to finished them all in illustrator!

I can't agree more. I won't stop to explore this. and I hope this project could inspired many other designers to explore about reading efficiency as well! :)

Why this project is freakin important

Sometimes, while eating or hang out with friends (who also design students), we love to discuss our project, and asked for feedback. So, one fine day, we all gathered and I explained my project, I started talked about kerning, leading.. But I was really surprised by they reactions.

"what is kerning?" one of them asked.. And the other start to ask as well, some of them didnt even heard it before. And today, I met another person who asked me what is kerning and all that is...

So? My hypothesis from this entire things that happen: this project indeed, is important since many of young designers (here) might not considering this particulars while they designing.

GE Data Visualization

One of interesting visualization by GE Data Visualization that inspired me to create a visualization of reading area survey results. It's really interesting stats to show the CFO Survey results. Here is the link: http://visualization.geblogs.com/visualization/cfo_survey/ They used flash to build this, which make this even more interesting because the area would be overlay as you click the topics. Therefore, I thought of using transparent papers or tracing papers for my survey analysis book.

JUMPS!

Reading has deep connection with eye tracking. In 1879, Louis Emile Javal noticed that people do not read smoothly across a page, but rather pause on some words while moving quickly through others.

Somehow....
this statement arouse some questions in my mind, called it as "curiosity", about how reader move their eyes toward text... Are they always do that? sometimes we (as a readers) might not realize that we all JUMPS and JUMPS and JUMPS as we read the texts. I remembered that sometimes I would read only several words if I found the boring text... this kind of reading force my mind to be at limbo where I hold the books or look at the screen but my mind is in the dream world. No interactivity between me and the text that I saw. So, this could happen to everyone, couldn't it? and we do not what this happen, of course, why read when our mind is sleep (owh, I mean... day dreaming)?

Are the reader is too fast? too quick to be catch by text? so, instead of saying : the brown fox jumps over the lazy dog, it is better to say...  the quick reader jumps over the lazy text, is it?

Idea Outcome 3: Cheat Posters

I think to create some posters to help designers remember these rules and apply it to their works. I thought of use posters as the media because I realize that designer love to put posters in their studio or working place. You know the "keep calm & carry on" posters? I think this simple typography poster could be my approach to remind the rules of designing textual information to the designers.

Things that I realize when I wrote my essay

Grammar is freakin' important!!!

And I sucks at it, so a helping hand from friend is needed ;)

Don't use such unclear or too general key issue and sub-titles.

It will give you a headache later... especially when you move to other chapters. It is okay to have direct title so people would understand clearly, instead asked them to analyze the connection between title and the text. You not write a poems and essay is not an art. That's why i hate it.

Structure, write and read it many many times. 

It is a correct explanation and examples that you use? It is a good words and is it okay to put it there? Will it solve the problem sequentially? 

Eliminate the information that are too wide to be explain 
and unlink towards the topic that you choose. 

This is a biggest problem to the people who loves to do research and take internet as the tools of inspirations. close your Firefox or Safari or browser or whatever that can link to find another inspirations. Focus to what you had found.

Luxor Ads

Another images that has inspired me to create the outcome for 'keywords' analysis! It would be good if some images could appear from all survey results! (just a little hope.. although it definitely wouldn't appear haha)

How if...

Are this knowledge of the project is really important then? I start this project because my curiousity about how human read. Sometimes little action that people thing is ordinary activity but if we take a deep about it, look, search, and explore more would giving us extraordinary, from little things that we never realize before although it was there and we always do.

Before I consider this matters, as a designer who also a reader, I never considered about reading process.. Although I realise that I always jumps to other words as I go through the text. But I never realize that it is an important process that help designer to define the structure of the infomation.

Imagine if nobody have not realise about it. if Javal never thought about eye tracking... 

How we define the layout? 

Why can't we walk (read) straight?

We can't walk straight?! Can we read straight then? without jumps around the text....?

Since the movie is too big and it took for ages to upload it, I reduce it (for mobile resolution). Full resolution on vimeo: http://vimeo.com/17083789

I think inspire me to create such an interesting movie explanation! :) It have really nice illustration and easy explanation. Let's plan for semester 2 outcomes! *fire up!

What is reading?

Reading is asking questions of printed text. And reading with comprehension becomes a matter of getting your questions answered.

 - Frank Smith in Reading Without Nonsense (1997)

Reading is a psycholinguistic guessing game. It involves an interaction between thought and language. Efficient reading does not result from precise perception and identification of all elements, but from skill in selecting the fewest, most productive cues necessary to produce guesses which are right the first time. The ability to anticipate that which has not been seen, of course, is vital in reading, just as the ability to anticipate what has not yet been heard is vital in listening.

- Kenneth Goodman in Journal of the Reading Specialist (1967)

Where did it all start?

When I was child, I always wish to be a hero... superman, spiderman, or ironman (why it always to be a man? haha). It is a time where you hope someday you could make a world a better place for everyone. So, this wishes still, somewhere, live inside my mind.

As a designer (still graphic design student tho..), I hope I could give a solution to the world. Therefore, I had chosen reading efficiency topic as my final project. It has been carefully develop.. start from semester one, where it all just started from a few of 10 small issues, ideas and thoughts from my surroundings. See the diagram process below (click it if you want to read it):

 

The reason is pretty simple, as we all know, reading is a initial activity in human life, for example, by reading this post, you're already do this activity right?