Funky fonts make learning easier: Study

Washington, Jan 15 (ANI): Having difficulty learning something? Then try some funky fonts, suggests a new study.

The research has shown that fonts, or styles of typeface, that are relatively difficult to read help people learn new information.

The font effect works both in lab experiments and in real classrooms, perhaps by forcing students to work harder to process the information.

"We weren't sure if our findings in the laboratory would hold up in the classroom, so we were pleasantly surprised," Live Science quoted lead author Connor Diemand-Yauman, who was a Princeton University undergraduate when he conducted the research, as telling Live Science.

People generally assume that the easier it is to learn something, the easier it will be to remember the information later.

But education research has shown that in many cases, it's the struggle that makes information stick.

Such "desirable difficulties" include practices such as self-testing, varying how information is presented, and even leaving out letters in words.

Dieman-Yauman and his fellow researchers were interested in whether switching from easy-to-read fonts to more-difficult ones would create a desirable difficulty and improve learning.

The results were published in the January issue of the journal Cognition. (ANI)