Manual non-standard font question -Reply

[Carol Van Natta <CVANNATT -at- ITC -dot- NRCS -dot- USDA -dot- GOV>]

Aaaaaccckkkkkkk (imagine cat-with-hairball sound).

It's not only difficult to read, but incredibly annoying after
about two paragraphs. When I see such things, I'm inclined
to disbelieve what I'm reading, because I suspect it was
written by some pie-in-the-sky marketing schlep who's STILL
trying to sell me something, rather than a technical writer
who cares about me, the user, being able to use the
software.

I suspect, although I have no proof, that it actually erodes the
name recognition for the product, because users stop
reading the name and start seeing it as a graphic or icon that
doesn't need translation into English (kind of like how, in
science fictions stories where the characters have
unpronounceable names, you temporarily remember the
collection of letters, then forget them when you're done with
the book).

>>> Tom Herme <therme -at- NVBELL -dot- NET> 1/19/98  7:49 pm
>>>
I have a question for all of you. I have a 300 page manual that
uses a common serif
font, twelve point for body text and headings. The product
name includes 32 at the end,
for example, "Software32" to distinguish it from our older
DOS product. I include a
non-breaking space between "Software" and "32".

My marketing manager wants to format every instance of the
product name in Brush Script
and give a superscript appearance to the 32.

I question the readability of this since every page may have
multiple instances of the
product name. I think that readers may become distracted by
this.

I'd appreciate your thoughts on this. Please reply on the list.

Thanks.

Tom Herme
mailto://therme -at- nvbell -dot- net


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