Are you Experienced? - by Matt on March 14, 2008 12:53 PM
This snippet of jumbled text has been widely circulated on the internet for years:
"Aoccdrnig to rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it deosn't mttaer waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are. The olny iprmoetnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer be at the rghit pclae. The rset can be a toatl mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit a porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe."
The claim in the last sentence, that you can read the words despite the jumbled order of the letters "because the human mind does not read every letter by itself, but the word as a whole," isn't entirely accurate in my opinion. New readers don't read words as a whole. They take the time to process each letter separately, until it matches a word in their existing verbal vocabulary ("p, p, pop, popco, POPCORN!"). A new reader trying to read "porlbem" would more likely say "por, por, porbel... porbelum?" than instantly recognize it as "problem." The habit of quickly looking at a complete word and identifying it without processing all or most of the letters is the result of deep familiarity with reading, not an inherent condition of the human mind. The claim in the last sentence of this famous jumbled text would be more accurate if it said "the experienced reader's mind does not read every letter by itself, but the word as a whole."
I was reminded of this classic piece of 90s email forward fodder when I was thinking about the ability of savvy users to intuit how to navigate software they've never encountered before, versus the gruelingly slow process that less competent users go through when presented with an unfamiliar application (be it web or desktop). Savvy users figure out new software quickly, and new or otherwise less competent users fumble around with trial and error until they give up or figure it out.
Jabbik, upon launch, will be unfamiliar to everyone not involved in its development. Savvy users will recognize how to use a lot of its features as instantly as long-time readers recognize that "porbelm" should be interpreted as "problem" in the jumbled text above. Less competent users will likely struggle a bit with trial and error. But wtih Jbabik, eevn svavy uesrs wlil hvae to laern smethonig new in oderr to fgirue it out.
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"Aoccdrnig to rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it deosn't mttaer waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are. The olny iprmoetnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer be at the rghit pclae. The rset can be a toatl mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit a porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe."
The claim in the last sentence, that you can read the words despite the jumbled order of the letters "because the human mind does not read every letter by itself, but the word as a whole," isn't entirely accurate in my opinion. New readers don't read words as a whole. They take the time to process each letter separately, until it matches a word in their existing verbal vocabulary ("p, p, pop, popco, POPCORN!"). A new reader trying to read "porlbem" would more likely say "por, por, porbel... porbelum?" than instantly recognize it as "problem." The habit of quickly looking at a complete word and identifying it without processing all or most of the letters is the result of deep familiarity with reading, not an inherent condition of the human mind. The claim in the last sentence of this famous jumbled text would be more accurate if it said "the experienced reader's mind does not read every letter by itself, but the word as a whole."
I was reminded of this classic piece of 90s email forward fodder when I was thinking about the ability of savvy users to intuit how to navigate software they've never encountered before, versus the gruelingly slow process that less competent users go through when presented with an unfamiliar application (be it web or desktop). Savvy users figure out new software quickly, and new or otherwise less competent users fumble around with trial and error until they give up or figure it out.
Jabbik, upon launch, will be unfamiliar to everyone not involved in its development. Savvy users will recognize how to use a lot of its features as instantly as long-time readers recognize that "porbelm" should be interpreted as "problem" in the jumbled text above. Less competent users will likely struggle a bit with trial and error. But wtih Jbabik, eevn svavy uesrs wlil hvae to laern smethonig new in oderr to fgirue it out.
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