Life by defaults

We live our lives as creatures of habit. None more so than the structural engineer with his work. Some work in hermetic fashion quite happy not to talk to anyone for days or weeks while they twiddle with their analysis in arcane fashion, or others who may work openly with lots of questions peddled out to everyone they meet as they search for the right focus. One thing they share in common is this; they live by defaults. In every application they use from STAADPro to MS Excel they think it is risque to change the defaults. Someone might notice and complain!

Defaults are ruining our ability to express ourselves on paper. Consider this, generally, Structural engineers do not know how to use MS Word, in their work. Many engineers claim indifference but the reader's perception will not be denied. Let's change only one default and pause. Consider the following:
1) Skyscraper designs breaks the limit
2) Skyscraper designs breaks the limit
3)Skyscraper designs breaks the limit.

What do you percieve when you read these sentences just by the strength of the text type? Are you aware of the choices? Are you aware of the reader's perception? Do you care?

You should care. Helping people to understand your work, with subliminal choices, is a skillset of the ninja assassin calibre, in the midst of mediocre conscripted bored soldiers! Choice of text fonts is probably the only default most people would consider they have the confidence to change when they open MS Word.

Number 1 is the default Times New Roman font. It is the mindset of the american publishing standard imposed on the rest of the world.
Number 2 is the arial font, perhaps the second most common selection. Strong in Europe. It enables faster reading speading and is uncluttered at small scale. It is my preferred setting.
Number 3 is the courier font, a relic of the MS-DOS, common to structural analysis packages, producing the results file. Looks ancient and slow, everything spelled with hammer and chisel.

I haven't touched on other text fonts or text sizes, underlining,super- or sub-scripting, or bolding defaults but this will follow in future blogs. The human eye and the ability to visualise are the engineer's most critical tools. I believe engineers are also craftsmen but how many time do you hear someone say 'wow!' when they look at your calculation? How many times have you said it?

It happens nearly every time when people look at my calculations, the pleasure of reading it is apparent. Obviously, it takes more than the font selection and size to get it right but it is a good place to start. Readers always start to wonder how did I do it? It looks simple enough.

The only difference is I do not live by default.