100 MORE Things Every Designer Needs to Know About People

How People Read and Interpret Information

People learn to read at such a young age, and humans have been reading for centuries, so it’s easy to forget that reading is a relatively new phenomenon. Because it’s ubiquitous, it tends to be the go-to method for communicating online too. In this chapter, you’ll find out that there are some interesting twists to how people read, and that reading may not be as straightforward as you think. Perhaps now is the time to embrace new ways to communicate information.

23 If Text is Hard to Read, the Material is Easier to Learn

For years, I—and most other designers I know—have believed, and written, and taught that if you want whatever you’re designing to be easy to understand and use, then you have to make ...