Processing of Visible Language

Book excerpt: The organization of the page as a technological device and our acquisition of information from it were subjects of keen interest to psychologists and designers a century ago. Research on the topics proceeded briskly for more than a quarter of a century then, and was brought together in the still useful survey and analysis of them all that E. B. Huey published in 1908 as "The psychology and pedagogy of reading, with a review of the history of reading and writing and of methods, texts, and hygiene in reading. " Research on the psychological aspects of literacy tended to diminish after that peak, but research on design and on the technology of presenting infor mation has flourished apace meanwhile. Perhaps somewhat stimulated by the reissue of Huey's book by MIT Press in 1968, psychologists have returned to the study of literacy. The symposium that the present volume reports was an effort to bring together again psychologists interested in literacy and related forms of information acquisition, graphics designers, and engineers actively involved in the development and deployment of the newer technology. During this century, psychologists, graphics designers, and engineers have lost much of the mutual communication that their joint enterprise should encourage. The design of machines has often followed the convenience of packaging, the design of displays has often followed the designer's personal esthetic.