
Optimizing Handwriting - evilsimon
https://medium.com/@masonicboom/optimizing-handwriting-c301135d5e22
======
jrockway
I write e with one stroke. I am very confused by this article.

In fact, I use one stroke for all lowercase letters except f, i, j, k, t, x,
and z.

~~~
to3m
Going by the diagram, it looks as if substantial changes in direction are
being counted as a new stroke (which is arguable). Look at `r' \- I somehow
doubt the pen is lifted between drawing one part and the next.

~~~
masonicb00m
This is correct. I chose this definition of "stroke" for simplicity. It's
meant as a proxy measure for "difficulty of writing the letter". A better
measure might be "median time it takes to write each letter at an acceptable
level of legibility", but that would require a lot more effort. The numerical
results will depend on the measure of effort, but I suspect the general point
will be the same.

------
digitalsigil
I also have some qualms with how you decide what is a "stroke", but this is an
interesting line of analysis.

However, I would argue it is more important for an alphabet to optimized for
readability rather than writability. If you want to write fast, learn
shorthand or the stenotype!

~~~
masonicb00m
Admittedly, the choice of "stroke" definition is an imperfect measure of the
cost to write each letter (see my comment above).

Even if you want readability to weigh more heavily than writability into the
optimization, wouldn't you agree that increasing writability, at no cost to
readability, would be good (it's a "Pareto improvement")? This is the point of
the concluding section, which discusses swapping the meaning of existing
letters.

------
koliber
If we are going to do radical alphabet redesigns, I suggest coming up with new
designs for each of the 26 letters so that it only takes one stroke to write
each. That would probably result in an alphabet that would be more difficult
to read, but it would be optimized for the number-of-strokes-for-average-
english-writing heuristic.

~~~
david-given
You might be interested to read about Elian:

[http://www.ccelian.com/ElianScriptFull.html](http://www.ccelian.com/ElianScriptFull.html)

I think the letter notation could use optimisation --- the cost per letter
varies extensively, but the letters are assigned alphabetically, so letters
near the top of the alphabet are cheaper to write than letters at the bottom
--- but I like the underlying principle that it's designed for _humans_ to
write, not machines, therefore it's intended from the ground up to allow
expression and choice in how you write it.

------
Grue3
Here's a great optimization: write in cursive! So much time is wasted writing
every letter separately. If it's still too slow, there's always shorthand.

