
Sans Forgetica, a font designed to help you remember your study notes - lysp
http://sansforgetica.rmit/
======
codetrotter
> Sans Forgetica is more difficult to read than most typefaces – and that’s by
> design. The 'desirable difficulty' you experience when reading information
> formatted in Sans Forgetica prompts your brain to engage in deeper
> processing.

But does the effectiveness of this hold up over time or will your brain get
accustomed to the font after a while such that reading it eventually becomes
no different than reading whatever font you used to use before?

~~~
adrianmonk
I don't think it's true that all fonts eventually approach the same level of
easy readability.

Yes, you will get better at reading this font than you were at reading this
font initially, but probably you still won't be able to read it as fast as you
can read some other font.

~~~
yorwba
This font has easily distinguishable glyphs for all letters. Some fonts make
"Ill" looks like ||| and it's still possible to read most texts written in
such fonts easily. Considering that it's possible to learn to read a
completely different alphabet, I'm not convinced that there's anything to font
legibility besides familiarity, so long as all glyphs are distinguishable.

~~~
ClassyJacket
I agree. Maybe this effect will only work if you rotate fonts every so often
to one you're not familiar with. If this effect works at all.

~~~
DonHopkins
¡pɐǝɹ oʇ ɹǝpɹɐɥ uǝʌǝ ǝɹɐ sʇuoɟ pǝʇɐʇoɹ ʇnq

~~~
komali2
What is this black magic

~~~
Sohcahtoa82
bɘɿoɿɿim ƚuodɒ ƚɒʜw ,ɔiǫɒm ʞɔɒld ƨi nwob ɘbiƨqu ʞniʜƚ uoy ʇI

𝖀𝖓𝖎𝖈𝖔𝖉𝖊 𝖈𝖆𝖓 𝓫𝓮 𝓪𝓫𝓾𝓼𝓮𝓭 𝕚𝕟 𝕞𝕒𝕟𝕪 𝙞𝙣𝙩𝙚𝙧𝙚𝙨𝙩𝙞𝙣𝙜 𝙬𝙖𝙮𝙨

~~~
komali2
haha, second line doesn't work on my android phone!

works on chrome + ubuntu though, apparently

------
quadrangle
My favorite "desirable difficulty" from cog psych is to practice _recall_. I
recall a study with 3 groups of students:

1\. read essay 4 times

2\. read and take notes, study notes

3\. read once, then have to write out (a few times) what can be recalled on a
blank piece of paper

The groups were from most to least confident in their learning but the actual
success on a test for concepts (which requires recall) was opposite.

So, better than using a weird font to push encoding of memory is to plan for
and then do recall practice. Like tell other people about what you learned or
test yourself on it.

You get good at whatever you practice. If you reread something over and over,
you don't get better at recalling the ideas, but you _do_ get better at
_reading_ the thing. I bet the first group above would do better than the
others at giving a live reading of the essay.

~~~
mujoco
Your method (3) is a great way to study, and it's very similar to the "Feynman
Technique": [https://mattyford.com/blog/2014/1/23/the-feynman-
technique-m...](https://mattyford.com/blog/2014/1/23/the-feynman-technique-
model)

The Feynman Technique is basically alternating between writing a description
of a concept on paper from memory, and looking up whatever you couldn't
remember.

~~~
quadrangle
It's not _my_ method, I was recalling something I learned elsewhere. I've told
lots of people about it, so I recall the points that mattered for telling
people. I haven't practiced recalling the study authors and name of the study,
so I can't recall that stuff.

------
michaelkeenan
There was excitement when the first study showed hard-to-read fonts improved
test performance in 2007[1]. Since then, there have been enough attempted
replications for a 2015 review to conclude that there's no effect[2].

[1] Overcoming intuition: Metacognitive difficulty activates analytic
reasoning:
[http://psycnet.apa.org/buy/2007-16657-003](http://psycnet.apa.org/buy/2007-16657-003)

[2] Disfluent fonts don’t help people solve math problems:
[http://psycnet.apa.org/record/2015-13746-007](http://psycnet.apa.org/record/2015-13746-007)

~~~
michaelkeenan
It's too late for me to edit this comment, but I was wrong to dismiss Sans
Forgetica based on the review. I checked the paper and it notes:

> Although the more general prevalence of “desirable difficulties” (Bjork,
> 1994) is beyond the scope of this article, several research groups have
> found that disfluent fonts improve performance on memory tasks (Cotton et
> al, 2014, Diemand-Yauman, Oppenheimer, & Vaughan, 2011; French et al., 2013;
> Lee, 2013; Sungkhasettee, Friedman, & Castel, 2011; Weltman & Eakin, 2014).
> Though some have also failed to replicate these effects (Eitel, Kühl,
> Scheiter, & Gerjets, 2014; Yue, Castel, & Bjork, 2013), _the balance of
> evidence suggests that disfluent fonts may aid memory_ but not
> reasoning—presumably because reading words more slowly benefits memory, but
> not reasoning.

Credit to kradroy for noting the discrepancy and prompting me to check. I
regret the error :(

~~~
kradroy
No harm, no foul. Glad I could help.

I was doing research in this area in 2005-2006. Mine was focused on recall of
English vocabulary by ESL learners. I chose to explore spacing intervals (a
hot topic then). The font disfluency aspect isn't something I had heard of
until today. I did a cursory search and found the first mentions of it between
2007 and 2011.

I wish I had proposed using Comic Sans over Arial to improve recall. It would
have made my experiments (and analysis turnaround) quicker than a semester. :)

------
liamzebedee
I tweeted about this yesterday, from the article:

> "Students remembered 57 per cent ... written in Sans Forgetica, compared to
> 50 per cent .... in Ariel"

7% delta retention isn't so much, is it?

~~~
curiousgal
Hey, it's based on "the principles of cognitive psychology", a field that's
renown for its accuracy and reproducibility.

~~~
unit91
Yeah, they should rename it "Sans Scientifica".

~~~
HarryHirsch
How about _litteræ pinguis serpentis_?

~~~
unit91
Been a long time since my Latin days and there's so much nominative/genitive
overlap in those words I can't figure it out. "Writings of a fat snake" or
something, I don't know. Help? :-)

~~~
HarryHirsch
It's "snake oil font". _littera_ is a letter, and I _hope_ that the plural
form means "font" or "script". But _litteræ_ definitely means "science" as
well, so that's OK.

Tufts University has Lewis & Short online:
[http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/resolveform?redirect=tru...](http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/resolveform?redirect=true&lang=Latin)

~~~
jaclaz
I would have used _oleum_ instead of _pinguis_ , which is more like "grease",
I believe:

[https://books.google.it/books?id=pdFLAAAAcAAJ&pg=PA85&lpg=PA...](https://books.google.it/books?id=pdFLAAAAcAAJ&pg=PA85&lpg=PA85&dq=oleum+serpentis&source=bl&ots=-MFtNmrpqQ&sig=Sxea6rurYnBkw-
Bnhbhx9vbux5s&hl=it&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiYw-
myvu3dAhWhyoUKHVkgAW8Q6AEIIDAF#v=onepage&q=oleum%20serpentis&f=false)

~~~
HarryHirsch
Good question. Is _oleum_ used for liquid fat, no matter the source, or is it
confined to plant-based oils? _pinguis_ has definite animalistic qualities.
You'd think it was _oleum nucis indicæ_ [1], not _pinguis nucis indicæ_ ,
except when used in a metaphorical manner.

Paging Reginald Foster, Father Reginald please!

[1] _nux indica_ is the coconut

~~~
Camillo
Pinguis isn't even a noun, is it? I think it's an adjective.

~~~
jaclaz
Pinguis can be a name alright besides an adjective, but it is more "fat":

[http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/morph?l=pinguis&la=la&ca...](http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/morph?l=pinguis&la=la&can=pinguis0#lexicon)

I provided the link to google books to the _Liber fundamentorum pharmacologia_
only to show that _oleum serpentis_ was actually an ancient remedy, of course
the Latin of a book translated from medieval Persian might be not exactly
Cicero, still it should be much better than any translation I can do.

But most probably oleum was a synonym of olive or however vegetable oil in
ancient Rome, and it is entirely possible that the actual Persian medicine was
the extract of some plant and only called _serpentis_.

On the other hand, besides the name, we don't actually know if snake oil is
actually made of snake oil or snake fat or _something else_.

~~~
Camillo
The link only shows pinguis as an adjective or adverb. I don't see any
reference to it being a noun on that page.

~~~
jaclaz
>Subst.: pingue , is, n., fat, grease, Plin. 11, 37, 85, § 212; Verg. G. 3,
124: “taurorum, leonum ac pantherarum pinguia,” Plin. 28, 9, 38, § 144:
“comedite pinguia,” Vulg. 2 Esd. 8, 10.—

"Comedite pinguia" may be not "classic" latin, still it is known enough:

[https://books.google.it/books?id=VOmwZ1AwFsMC&printsec=front...](https://books.google.it/books?id=VOmwZ1AwFsMC&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q=comedite%20pinguia&f=false)

------
gojomo
I can't find it at the moment, but the last time I looked, attempted
replications of an early "illegibility improves recall" study failed. (IIRC,
that didn't use a custom font, but rather some de-contrasting/visual-noise
applied.)

I see no cited papers here, just the claim, in the video, that "over 100
students" were used in testing to pick this font from several candidates.

I'm doubtful of any long-term value here. Even if "desirable difficulty"
mechanism is real, I'd expect different readers to need wildly different
levels of interference, and for their perceptions to adapt quickly to
consistent letterforms. (So, to really get the benefit, you'd have an
adjustable and dynamic level of perceptual-interference.)

~~~
DonHopkins
Who can possibly forget the font that Mike Koss's "The Terminal" Apple ][
terminal emulator used to get 32 lines of 70 characters each in HIRES graphics
mode in 1981? It's the most difficult to read font I've ever used regularly!
(Don't try using it on a color TV, though.)

[https://web.archive.org/web/20120206091422/http://mckoss.com...](https://web.archive.org/web/20120206091422/http://mckoss.com/jscript/tinyalice.htm)

>Tiny (3x5) Font

>Created for the Apple II program The Terminal. Copyright (c) 1981 Michael C.
Koss

>In 1981 I wrote a terminal emulator for the Apple II. At the time, the Apple
II could only display upper case characters. I used the hi-res display (280 x
192 pixels!) to display my own character set. In order to come close to
showing an 80-column display, I created a truly tiny font, displaying the full
ASCII character set (upper and lower case).

>I created a font within a 3x5 pixel dimension, allowing the display of 32
lines of 70 characters each. The font definitely takes some training and
getting used to (especially recognition of characters that use descenders);
but I found it to be quite readable after a while.

~~~
ubittibu
Interesting. Too bad the link to download the font is not working.

------
keehun
Wow, they have their own TLD!
[https://www.iana.org/domains/root/db/rmit.html](https://www.iana.org/domains/root/db/rmit.html)

Interesting that the university's website is not on that TLD but rather
[https://rmit.edu.au](https://rmit.edu.au)

~~~
gowld
The unusual TLD makes it more memorable.

Anyone can apply for their own gTLD.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generic_top-
level_domain](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generic_top-level_domain)

Interestingly, one of the major promoters of gTLDs is
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melbourne_IT](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melbourne_IT)
a neighbor of RMIT

~~~
peterwwillis
_" The initial price to apply for a new gTLD was $185,000"_

Using that student tuition fee wisely. (ICANN's website confirms this is still
the initial cost + deposit, and more fees can pile on)

------
Eli_P
While some folks here are joking about mirroring text, there's a sane point
behind that.

There's an ancient Greeks' way to read text more effectively called
Boustrophedon. The idea is that the text lines are interleaved with x-axis
mirrored lines, so your eyes move not by Z-shape trajectory, but like meander.
There're demo texts to learn to use it [1].

As for my experience, I can't say I'd been understanding or remembering more
or less while reading boustro, especially when I'd begun to get used to it.

[1] [https://boustro.com/app/](https://boustro.com/app/)

------
burtonator
This is actively being discussed in the memory and mnemonics community along
side spaced repetition.

I'd like to see more research here and see where it can be used and how it can
be used.

I've been working on an integrated offline browser for documents and
annotation named Polar:

[https://getpolarized.io/](https://getpolarized.io/)

which is mostly designed around annotation and spaced repetition.

You can store all your documents and web content in one place and since you're
obviously trying to read and retain all that information it might be
interesting to enable this as a one-off feature to see if it helps.

Another idea could be to just have them for the flashcards since this is the
key information you're trying to retain.

------
Freak_NL
That font seems quite legible actually. The letters are all quite distinct and
apart from the gaps and backward-slant, follow proper typographical
conventions.

I would have made the letters monospaced at least (no kerning either), and
would have used base letter shapes that look much more alike (e.g., the bowls
of the d, a, q, and c should be the same, because slight differences in them
help you identify letters more readily, which is precisely what proper fonts
do).

Also, does that university actually own their own top-level domain? Those
don't come cheap do they?

~~~
erichurkman
Re: top-level domain, there's a good number of universities on the list.
[https://www.iana.org/domains/root/db](https://www.iana.org/domains/root/db)

It's about $200k.

~~~
diminoten
I think it's pretty cool! Would definitely matter to me from a "what school
should I go to" standpoint.

~~~
coverband
Honestly, I can't tell if you're being serious or sarcastic... Both cases
sound reasonable to a degree.

~~~
diminoten
Not being sarcastic, learning the extra stuff related to managing a TLD sounds
interesting to me, and it sounds like this program has someone on it that
likes doing cool stuff like that.

------
have_faith
I thought it was something to do with forging essays or something similar as I
kept reading it as Forge-tica.

I always thought the use of study notes was just in writing them to stimulate
memory, not actually reading them (for me at least).

~~~
adrianmonk
Me too. Taking write-only notes was one of my best study weapons in college.

Though, just _think_ of your memory retention if you take notes by hand-
drawing this font. Sure, it's time consuming, but you're never going to forget
those two sentences that you got through.

------
vinayms
> Sans Forgetica is more difficult to read than most typefaces – and that’s by
> design. The 'desirable difficulty' you experience when reading information
> formatted in Sans Forgetica prompts your brain to engage in deeper
> processing

Based on this logic - harder the process better the processing - its obviously
a mistake that schools are increasingly using technology to teach, like
visualizing geometric shapes on screen in 3D instead of painstakingly drawing
on the board and letting students see it in their heads.

~~~
DonHopkins
And based on this logic, I'm asking everyone to please downvote my comment to
lower its contrast, so it's harder to read and unforgettable!

Edit: NOOOO!!! I said DOWNVOTE! ;(

------
jawns
The basic idea has to do with a concept called processing fluency. Studies
have shown that the harder your brain has to work to process the information,
the more likely you are to absorb it -- at least to a point.

One recent study that manipulated processing fluency using a hard-to-read font
is "Fluency and the detection of misleading questions: Low processing fluency
attenuates the Moses illusion," Social Cognition, 2008.

The study found that people who read information in a hard-to-read font were
better at spotting a certain category of error than people who read the same
information in an easy-to-read font.

(Incidentally, this study is one that I adapted for my book "Experiments for
Newlyweds: 50 Amazing Science Projects You Can Perform With Your Spouse," due
out in April. So if you know any couples who'd like to try it out together, it
makes a great wedding gift!)

~~~
Al-Khwarizmi
When I was a student, I used multilinguality for a similar purpose.

When I was studying from notes or a book in Spanish (my native language), I
would review in English. Actually, my review consisted in presenting the
contents to an invisible audience in English (yes, I've never been able to
study in libraries or other places where you need to remain silent, most of my
time studying consists in standing and talking...)

Conversely, when I studied from material in English, I would review it in
Spanish, also by presenting to an invisible audience.

I always found this to be very effective (even before learning about the
cognitive science concept you point out). Of course, it's just anecdotal
evidence with sample size of 1. But it's a fun way to study anyway, it also
lets you practice a foreign language, and you're more likely to not get bored
and set "autopilot" on (maybe this was also a big factor why it worked for
me...)

------
edent
Anyone know what the licence is for the font? It is free to download, but
doesn't come with anything explaining usage and distribution restrictions.

~~~
lostatseajoshua
I reached out to them directly (RMIT) about the license and they responded
that is not available for commercial use.

“Sans Forgetica is designed for non-commercial use only. It is bound by a
creative commons, non-commercial, attributed (CCBYNC) license.”

~~~
edent
Thanks!

------
felipeerias
In my experience, a good strategy is to read your notes aloud, preferably
while walking.

This forces you to really notice what is written, helps sustain your attention
(when you're walking and talking, there's not much cognitive slack for
drifting off), will improve your memory (we tend to remember things better
when we have spent a larger effort on them), and leads pretty naturally to
reason aloud about what you have just read.

Apparently, there used to be perambulatory monks that would follow a similar
strategy, reading or reciting sacred texts while pacing around the courtyards
of their monastery.

~~~
JacobAldridge
Interesting. I remember in high school history we'd often get the exam essay
question to prepare. As a boarder, I used to break into one of the school
classrooms, re-arrange all the furniture so the chairs formed a giant circle,
and I'd pace around it memorising what I'd prepared.

I'm now wondering if the added chair-balance while walking enhanced the
approach you're describing.

------
frankzander
Hm made an Ad with this font and your future customers will remember. Have to
hurry up to create a brand ;D

------
robaato
Reminds me of Steve Yegge:

[https://plus.google.com/110981030061712822816/posts/AaygmbzV...](https://plus.google.com/110981030061712822816/posts/AaygmbzVeRq)

Fortunately I’d spent years watching Jeff in action before my turn came, and I
had prepared in an unusual way. My presentation -- which, roughly speaking was
about the core skills a generalist engineer ought to know -- was a resounding
success. He loved it. Afterwards everyone was patting me on the back and
congratulating me like I’d just completed a game-winning hail-mary pass or
something. One VP told me privately: “Presentations with Jeff never go that
well.”

:

To prepare a presentation for Jeff, first make damn sure you know everything
there is to know about the subject. Then write a prose narrative explaining
the problem and solution(s). Write it exactly the way you would write it for a
leading professor or industry expert on the subject.

That is: assume he already knows everything about it. Assume he knows more
than you do about it. Even if you have ground-breakingly original ideas in
your material, just pretend it’s old hat for him. Write your prose in the
succinct, direct, no-explanations way that you would write for a world-leading
expert on the material.

You’re almost done. The last step before you’re ready to present to him is
this: Delete every third paragraph.

------
anonytrary
Right when I saw the example text, I was immediately reminded of typographical
rivers[0]. If you have a visual memory, I'm guessing rivers in paragraphs may
also help you remember what you read, since the negative space creates branch-
like structures in the paragraph, which adds an extra visual memory cue. After
looking at a few examples of this font, it's clear that this font was designed
to do that. You can see similar continuous structures in the text itself.
Pretty neat. Looks like they also borrowed ideas from Daniel Kahneman, as
well[1]. In his book, I believe one of the examples does a test on Princeton
students to see how many riddles they can solve, and they did better when the
font was harder to read.

[0]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/River_(typography)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/River_\(typography\))

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thinking,_Fast_and_Slow](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thinking,_Fast_and_Slow)

------
dec0dedab0de
Regardless if it works, its a pretty neat font. I didnt see a license though,
does anyone know what is allowed?

------
yusee
I would LOVE a monospaced version of this. If any type designers are out
there, please make this happen.

~~~
justinpombrio
Yeah, it's surprisingly attractive and easy to read.

------
xfz
I'm inclined to think someone behind this was having a lot of fun, and it
looks nice.

If it turns out not to be a joke/hoax/psychology/social experiment, I will be
sure to remember - I made a note to check back later, using this special font
that aids memory.

~~~
DonHopkins
I can think of a practical use case for Forgetica Light, a font with the
opposite design of Sans Forgetica:

Instead of simply deleting messages after a short time, Snapchat should render
them in Forgetica Light, so you can't even remember them!

------
chaostheory
It's free. It's easy to install. There's no hidden catch like giving up your
privacy. Skepticism aside, I don't see the harm in trying it.

What would be cool is if they conducted a larger study via the Chrome plugin.

------
userbinator
It looks like a pretty artistic stencil font, which is to say I don't believe
it's all that much harder to read nor helps memory --- certainly I've seen a
lot of text in stencil font in various places, but I don't really remember
what that text was now.

Looking at paragraphs of text in it, I feel like it actually encourages me to
read faster because of the missing pieces; maybe it _is_ harder to read but
that triggers "skim mode" so I pay less attention to each word.

------
rodneyzeng
I tried and feel this font is crazy. I can hardly focus on the content because
my brain struggles in recognizing the letters. It does exactly the opposite
goal as it claims.

------
fliesblackflags
I can't actually see the font. The page has the font samples at #ccccdd with a
white background.

If someone doesn't seem to understand something as simple as contrast, why
should I think they understand memory?

Webaim has a tool to help with contrasts. Anything lighter than #595959 on a
white background can be hard to see.

[https://webaim.org/resources/contrastchecker/](https://webaim.org/resources/contrastchecker/)

------
KirinDave
I like Sans Forgetica. The idea that difficult reading and writing can help
you remember something is very fresh and real to me because 𐑲 𐑿𐑟 ·𐑖𐑱𐑝𐑾𐑯 𐑓𐑹 𐑨𐑤
𐑥𐑲 𐑯𐑴𐑑𐑟 𐑯 𐑑𐑨𐑕𐑒 𐑤𐑦𐑕𐑑𐑟 𐑑 𐑣𐑧𐑤𐑐 𐑥𐑰 𐑒𐑺𐑮𐑓𐑳𐑤𐑰 𐑕𐑧𐑤𐑧𐑒𐑑 𐑢𐑳𐑑 𐑑 𐑢𐑮𐑲𐑑 𐑯 𐑮𐑰𐑥𐑧𐑥𐑚𐑳𐑮.

In both cases, I notice it's easier to memorize things in this fashion.
Although I suppose with the ·𐑖𐑱𐑝𐑾𐑯 that effect will wear off if I obtain more
reading & writing proficiency.

~~~
rtkwe
What's that shorthand?

~~~
KirinDave
It's Shavian (·𐑖𐑱𐑝𐑾𐑯) which was linked here a little while ago. It's a
phonetic english alphabet (so it's not shorthand, but often is shorter) with
pretty good font support and a unicode allocation.

The Shavian Reddit has links to a Linux keymap and more details if you'd like
it. I used Memrise's Shavian course to memorize it in about a week, and I've
been reading and writing ever since.

It's delightful for task and note taking right now because the extra effort of
writing to it helps me remember things.

~~~
Bakary
What do you think of Quikscript?

~~~
KirinDave
Uh, I like it. I'm considering writing a unicode extension proposal for it. I
actually do all my task journaling in Shavian and I find it a lot more tedious
to write than Quickscript. Quickscript also has more useful loan-consonants
(and we could extend the spec easily to grab a few more, since sounds like ñ
are much more common in English than in Shaw's day).

So I like it, but I use Shavian mostly because it's well supported. I'm in the
camp that says physical writing is dead, so I wnat to get quick/read into
Unicode formally.

------
newmediapilot
This is like the opposite of a dyslexia friendly font.

------
Rjevski
Maybe we should treat the root cause and not the symptom? If people don't
remember stuff because they don't need it then maybe the tests should not
depend on remembering useless stuff?

At my job for some reason I never need to force myself to remember stuff; it
comes naturally as I look up the same thing over and over again because I use
it frequently.

------
glitchc
It's having the opposite effect on me. I usually remember images
outright(including the shape the letters took, word positions, some smudged
portion of the page, other defects, etc.) and read it out mentally in real-
time as I need it. This font is completely messing with my mnemonic. I have
trouble visualizing anything I write in it.

------
jxy
If they are so confident on the efficacy of their font, why don't they use the
font for all the text on their website?

------
mci
Compared to Donald Knuth's font [1], Sans Forgetica is for wussies.

[1] Donald E. Knuth, N-Ciphered Texts:
[https://digitalcommons.butler.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?articl...](https://digitalcommons.butler.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=3283&context=wordways)

------
irisli
It would've been nice to have the whole page to be in the Sans Forgetica font
to see it in action.

I tried copy-pasting the whole website into the "Type something you want to
remember" box near the bottom. Unfortunately, it's a <div contenteditable> and
the original font styling got copied inside too. :|

~~~
tokyodude
they clearly don't want you to remember their site. If they did they'd be
using their font

------
dwighttk
Man, my learning process had very little to do with reading the notes that I
wrote down. I can maybe remember one or two tests where I actually read over
my notes, but most of the time it was just the original writing down that
seemed to help with learning.

Maybe if the textbook was printed in this font...

------
mirekrusin
So you'll learn it after a while and it won't serve it's purpose anymore? Each
letter should slightly animate like a little slug or render randomly to get
benefits of forcing brain to read-with-focus or whatever that is.

~~~
DonHopkins
I wrote a PostScript font like that once. You just have to use the
"setcharwidth" operator instead of the "setcachedevice" operator in your
font's BuildChar or BuildGlyph procedure, so your glyphs don't end up getting
cached.

Here's an even more dynamic (albeit less efficient) PostScript font I made for
NeWS that forks off a light weight process to draw each character in the
background.

It actually creates a separate canvas (window) for every character with a
lightweight input event manager process listening for mouse events that lets
you slide each character around the screen by dragging with the middle mouse
button.

Some of the characters are "CycleItem" widgets you can click on with the left
button to cycle between different glyphs, and even "SliderItem" sliders and
"TextItem" input fields!

Because why should't you be able to create fully interactive editable user
interfaces just by drawing text?

[https://donhopkins.com/home/code/ifont.ps.txt](https://donhopkins.com/home/code/ifont.ps.txt)

------
xte
Ahem, my knowledge of cognitive psychology (and psychology in general) are
certainly not relevant but I pretend to be a decent reader... Sorry, your font
is _terrible_ to read. I spent more time in deciphering it than in understand
the written concept.

BTW personally I always found FAR MORE effective to take notes with pen and
paper and after transfer them on personal desktop, in org_mode in my case so
without any fancy distracting typography. The same for reading: I learn far
more reading a printed docs than from an on-screen one. I test many times and
techniques from high school to university to work training/conference etc. ALL
"PC made from the start" was a fail, including photos and voice recording. Of
course I'm not a statistical valid sample but I pretend to be not much
different than any other human around.

~~~
jessep
I can't tell if you are joking or not. The point of the font is being terrible
to read. There's an explanation on the page. Making your brain work harder to
get the info makes it more likely to remember the info.

~~~
xte
No it's not a joke, claiming that being harder to read help understanding
things remind me the ancient Victorian era, the Cilicium idea, the "all work
and no play" song etc. I do not consider it a scientific truth but only
another reactionary claim that can be as scientific as Franklin idea of
forcibly wake up people with a cannon shoot in any road.

~~~
regularfry
[http://www.matthewfrench.net/pubs/fontspreprint.pdf](http://www.matthewfrench.net/pubs/fontspreprint.pdf)
(to pick one example)

You may not know it, but there are studies backing this up. Whether you
consider it a scientific truth or not is barely relevant. What _is_
interesting to know is that not all disfluencies are created equal: blurring
text and adding visual noise don't help, apparently because they don't engage
the right part of the visual pathway.

~~~
xte
Thanks for the link, yes I do not know these kind of studies before, and I
skim read it just now, however I also see claim of non reproducibility and
different results from other studies in this page.

Personally I notice that force me to read difficult fonts does not help at all
my understatement or my memory. In the end my idea, without statistical proof
of course, is that such contrasting observation are simply noise. Perhaps due
to a sample size not big enough, perhaps due to tested individual itself but
still noise.

Also IMVHO such studies exist for a reason: teacher's mean quality is getting
lower and lower due to various schools reforms and since admit errors it's not
a thing these days someone try a sort of "montecarlo test" in the desperate
search of a solution to stop the bleeding. Other find such tentative nice for
their business because new stuff means new sales for someone.

------
Mefis
Surely you would get used to it and then it would stop being difficult to
read.

------
Someone
If “more difficult to read” indeed implies “better retention”, we need a
browser extension that shows a captcha on every page load that uses text
phrases supplied by the user.

I fear that’s a fairly fat _if_ , though.

------
feverishaaron
I realize this is a corner case, but I wonder how dyslexics will perform using
a font that looks even less like a letterform — when it is already a struggle
to combine several into a word.

~~~
regularfry
[http://www.matthewfrench.net/pubs/fontspreprint.pdf](http://www.matthewfrench.net/pubs/fontspreprint.pdf)

I was worried about exactly this when I was thinking about using it for
company training materials. Apparently the benefit for dyslexics (if you
believe this study) is even greater than for non-dyslexics.

------
tomcam
I think this approach is doomed to fail because Learning is already hard.
Increasing the cognitive load at the very beginning of the learning process
seems like a non-starter to me.

------
JohnL4
WRITING BY HAND. A font to help you remember your study notes.

~~~
gnicholas
An excellent point. I found that handwriting notes after I had typed them
dramatically improved recall. I did this when studying for the CA Bar exam,
which involves memorizing lots of rules. After taking typed notes during the
day, I would rewrite the notes by hand.

For me, I think part of the reason that I remember handwritten things better
is that the formatting has to be done correctly the first time. For example,
if I was writing down the three elements of a statute, one of which had two
sub-elements, then I had to know very clearly how the statute was structured
before committing pen to paper. When taking notes on a computer, it's easy to
just pound out text and then go back later and put in the right formatting.
For me, being forced to properly format the first time around seems to greatly
increase recall.

------
threatofrain
The mediating factor for these studies is going to be reading time. Similarly
I would presume reading a mathematics text out of order will also boost recall
on a test.

~~~
MrUnderBridje
Err, the 'n' resembles 'η' (the greek letter eta). The 'W' looks like 'Λ' (a
capital alpha with quotes). Maybe there are other confusing similarities. I
wouldn't use that font for maths, if it means I end up remembering an
incorrect formula.

------
neves
I don't really believe in it before experimenting, but I'll give it a try with
Anki spaced repetion software. Maybe I'll improve remembering.

------
ubittibu
Apparently I can memorize much better images than words, so I found helps me a
lot replacing words or parts of words with icons. That’s my study “font”.

------
inawarminister
How do I use this in Anki? Could be a really great help!

------
neom
Contender for a considerably better dyslexia font.

------
Luc
It takes on the order of a few minutes for your brain to learn to read that
font fluently. It all seems rather silly.

Does RMIT have a good reputation?

~~~
glitchc
To throw a match onto the powder keg:

Does the reputation of the university have any bearing on the quality of the
research? Sounds like the "appeal to authority" logical fallacy to me.

------
russfink
Does someone have this as a LaTeX font package?

~~~
mkesper
Modern LaTeX can use TTF and OTF natively.

------
rodneyzeng
I tried and feel this is crazy. I cannot focus on the content because my brain
struggles in recognizing the letters.

------
okonomiyaki3000
If being hard to read makes something easier to remember, my Japanese would be
a lot better by now.

------
whttmd
Is anyone familiar with OpenDyslexic? It does the same job but for normal
people, I think.

~~~
whttmd
Here's the link:
[https://www.opendyslexic.org/](https://www.opendyslexic.org/)

------
roynal
Tried the chrome extension - doesn't seem to be working. Can you guys look
into this?

------
snappyTertle
Comic Sans was ahead of its time

------
bmmayer1
It's cool, but has this been tested under replicable scientific conditions?

------
bitwize
It reminds me of the lettering on the signs in Lucis in _Final Fantasy XV_.

------
anonymfus
Is Cyrillic support planned?

~~~
mxfh
A side note: I sometimes transliterate latin text to cyrillic.

This doesn't exactly help with remembering things, but by now I have a
somewhat better understanding of the cyrillic alphabet, even without being
able to speak any of the languages using it, and only fleeting experience with
any slavic one.

It definitely takes away the alienness of it.

------
agumonkey
engineered information loss to streghten your cranial muscle, fun

------
jaclaz
Not to be the usual skeptic, but "scientifically designed" doesn't really-
really mean (at least to me) "designed by scientists" (which this thingy is).

I mean, nice and all, but what about some actual tests/reports of it actually
being noticeably better at remembering what you have read?

The concept is very nice and interesting, but besides it:

>The science of Sans Forgetica

>Sans Forgetica is more difficult to read than most typefaces – and that’s by
design. The 'desirable difficulty' you experience when reading information
formatted in Sans Forgetica prompts your brain to engage in deeper processing.

I would like to have something more than a video by the scientists that
designed it.

If it wasn't a UNI backed thing, I would have thought that the video was a
sales pitch for Kickstarter or similar.

I had some expectations for the .pdf inside the downloadable .zip but
basically all there is in it is:

>Learn more about the science behind Sans Forgetica at sansforgetica.rmit

~~~
dx87
It seems plausible, studies have shown that students who handwrite notes
retain more information than students that type notes. The reason for this is
because handwriting is slower than typing, so your mind spends more time
thinking about what you're writing, vs just being a stenographer that writes
everything the professor says, giving no thought to whether it's important or
not. I can't speak to the validity of Sans Forgetica, but on the surface it at
least makes sense.

[https://www.npr.org/2016/04/17/474525392/attention-
students-...](https://www.npr.org/2016/04/17/474525392/attention-students-put-
your-laptops-away)

~~~
gowld
You are speculating without evidence. Handwriting may be more effective _for
memorization_ than typing because forming letters by hand is a more memorable
act than typing, nothing to do with "choosing what's important to write".
Since handwriting is so laborious, it leaves LESS time for thinking about what
to write down, not more.

You can test this yourself by making a fair comparision:

* Copy entire documents by handwriting vs typing, with no regard to choosing "what's important", and test which strategy leads to better recall.

* Take notes from a lecture by handwriting vs typing, setting a goal of say 10% of the total material note-taken, choosing what's important to write down, and giving yourself as much time as needed to write or tye everything

* Similar comparisons, writing all vs writing selections, typing all vs typying selectionsl

~~~
jerf
"Since handwriting is so laborious, it leaves LESS time for thinking about
what to write down, not more."

A bit in undergrad but quite a lot in grad school, I ended up stopping taking
notes. I discovered I was better off engaging completely in class, and
consulting the textbooks if necessary, than trying to multitask learning and
taking notes. YMMV; I can easily believe there are people who had the exact
opposite experience, that note taking radically improved their retention. I'm
just saying that such experience is definitely not universal.

~~~
spunker540
I was the same way for the most part, I'd skip taking notes unless a teacher
was making a very important point that I knew I wouldn't remember or wouldn't
be able to look up later. But most of the time if it was important the teacher
wouldn't just say it once and never touch on it again!

------
thanatropism
This is cool. Shame most of my study notes are equation-heavy.

------
lysp
Australian news articles about it (may be behind paywall / geo block):

[https://www.news.com.au/national/victoria/sans-forgetica-
rmi...](https://www.news.com.au/national/victoria/sans-forgetica-rmit-
university-creates-font-to-help-remember-words/news-
story/8774999e6e02eddc6d66701b9310bd79)

[https://www.theage.com.au/education/the-new-font-that-
promis...](https://www.theage.com.au/education/the-new-font-that-promises-to-
boost-your-memory-20181003-p507ju.html)

[https://mumbrella.com.au/naked-creates-font-for-rmit-
which-i...](https://mumbrella.com.au/naked-creates-font-for-rmit-which-is-
designed-to-help-students-study-544049)

------
LeicaLatte
I don't get it.

------
DonHopkins
Does it include a full set of unforgettable emojis?

------
bayesian_horse
I'd like to see a Chinese version of this...

~~~
quickthrower2
Does Chinese even need this?

------
solarkraft
Uh. I have a feeling I'll just not read it properly and learn worse, if
anything.

------
KaiserPro
thats a nightmare if you are dyslexic/practic/etc

~~~
regularfry
That study has also been done: apparently the effects are even better.
[http://www.matthewfrench.net/pubs/fontspreprint.pdf](http://www.matthewfrench.net/pubs/fontspreprint.pdf)

------
21
Recalling the recent "how to smell BS papers" article, this doesn't pass the
grandma test.

More specifically, you would imagine that if such a simple hack existed, we
would be well aware of it in 500 years of printed press.

~~~
rtkwe
That can really change though just depending on how long we've bothered
systematically studying $SUBJECT.

------
skookumchuck
The example text just gives me eyestrain. If I wanted eyestrain, I'd just
borrow someone else's glasses, or switch to a low res monitor.

