Paper expert's opinion sought

[A Smug Dill]

5 minutes ago, LizEF said:

You have it backwards.

 

I honestly think that @Tommaso Santojanni has more than just that backwards. If the goal is to understand which factors or parameters translate to what user experiences, and to reduce the list of factors to the ones with the most impact or influence, in my opinion the more logically sound way of going about it would be to list as many factors as it is possible for one to think of — even if some have conceptual overlap — and then collect data for as many distinctly different types of paper in the market as practicable; then gather all the users who would be within the intended scope of the model (whether that's just one person, or a group, or “universal”), have them document their experience in n different dimensions (or orthogonal factors) of using each type of paper, and rate the overall experience on a scale of great–good–fair–mediocre–poor–dreadful or some such. Then the project can review the dataset, and decide which parameters carry more weight and toss out the rest. That would be the start of having a model, which one would then test and refine, and test and refine again.

[TSherbs]

2 minutes ago, Tommaso Santojanni said:

Your comments appear to be, once more, aimed at expressing your unease at the rebirth of OMAS, as you have made rather abundantly clear in this thread. However, here we are concerned with paper characteristics and, therefore, this is not the most fitting thread to expose your desire to be contrary.

If you have nothing to contribute to how paper/nib/ink interact, perhaps it might be kinder, to all concerned, if you would refrain from remarks that serve no one but your feelings.

You will, therefore, forgive me if I shall refrain from replying to future comments as I fear, that, by doing so I might convey the unfortunate impression that I actually regard your opinion of some consequence.

 

Cool. I sense that that request for "forgiveness" wasn't exactly sincere. You're free to post and ask advice and disregard responses as you wish. I'm just trying to figure out what appears to be a fruitless quest for our assistance in your trying to objectify a subjective user experience (see Dill's reply above). I then wondered if it was your same motive from the other thread, where you did mention that Omas was considering some kind of paper package also (or maybe you were considering it on their behalf). Sometimes it helps others in a conversation to know why you are asking things. It can help tailor our answers.

 

I am, by the way, indifferent to this new Omas offering. No positive feelings, no negative feelings. I have an occasional curiosity about new pen offerings generally, but that is it. This pen, now that I have seen it, interests me not at all. 

 

Paper interests me a lot, and I write on it several times a week. I also use manual typewriters, and paper responsiveness to this is equally important (to me). 

 

But ignore this response if it suits you.

[Tommaso Santojanni]

18 minutes ago, LizEF said:

Rather than trying to turn a user experience into a paper attribute, I'm trying to identify the paper attributes that will lead to the user experience.

I see your point. You prefer a descriptive reference to the cause rather than to the effect.

 

18 minutes ago, LizEF said:

Mostly, this dictates ghosting (and can limit or allow bleeding - though it shouldn't be the primary method of doing so).

Here, I gather, you are once again resorting to the same cause rather than effect preference in your choice of descriptive character.

But, I wonder, how does the writer experience the interaction nib/paper/ink and what matters to him: the cause or the effect?
 

[LizEF]

5 minutes ago, A Smug Dill said:

I honestly think that @Tommaso Santojanni has more than just that backwards. If the goal is to understand which factors or parameters translate to what user experiences, and to reduce the list of factors to the ones with the most impact or influence, in my opinion the more logically sound way of going about it would be to list as many factors as it is possible for one to think of — even if some have conceptual overlap — and then collect data for as many distinctly different types of paper in the market as practicable; then gather all the users who would be within the intended scope of the model (whether that's just one person, or a group, or “universal”), have them document their experience in n different dimensions (or orthogonal factors) of using each type of paper, and rate the overall experience on a scale of great–good–fair–mediocre–poor–dreadful or some such. Then the project can review the dataset, and decide which parameters carry more weight and toss out the rest. That would be the start of having a model, which one would then test and refine, and test and refine again.

Ha!  I love it!  And, his mention of my spreadsheet actually reminded me that my memory claims to have seen a similar chart for papers, where someone had ventured to list various papers and a set of attributes....  But I can't even begin to think where that might have been - and I have no intent to search for it - I have to go record a review!

 

Someone help me out of this paper vortex!

[A Smug Dill]

18 minutes ago, Tommaso Santojanni said:

@LizEF created a most useful chart [here], distilling seven key characteristics commonly displayed by inks, allowing each writer to discern how these relate to his own preferences.

 

All you — as opposed to Liz — are doing there is to unilaterally and arbitrarily limit what may matter to some other individual. If there are 100 different components in a vector (v₁, … , v₁₀₀) that provides a description of an ink, and you find that only v₁ to v₅ matter to your experience and shed the rest from the lookup table documenting all distinctly identifiable inks in scope of the project, then you're denying other users of the model and/or dataset a say and the opportunity to decide that, to them  v₄ to v9 are what matter most.

[Tommaso Santojanni]

Thank you for this comment, it is helpful to explain.

 

15 minutes ago, A Smug Dill said:

If the goal is to understand which factors or parameters translate to what user experiences,

I am seeking to identify the opposite.
I am interested in the user experience, not the factors or parameters that affect it.

 

15 minutes ago, A Smug Dill said:

list as many factors as it is possible for one to think of — even if some have conceptual overlap — and then collect data for as many distinctly different types of paper in the market as practicable;

Such an approach would be very accurate and useful from a manufacturer’s or technical standpoint. My perspective, however, is the inverse. I observe it from the end user's perspective.


As previously mentioned, I prefer to avoid overcomplicating matters and merely identify half a dozen characteristics that writers either value or tend to avoid.
 

[LizEF]

4 minutes ago, Tommaso Santojanni said:

But, I wonder, how does the writer experience the interaction nib/paper/ink and what matters to him: the cause or the effect?

Even if it's the effect, no one (even in the community) is describing paper by the effect.  Often, the effect is something one struggles even to describe to others.  But having experienced unpleasantness (drag or slippery), one can tell others about the unpleasantness, name the paper, pen, and ink, and ask how to avoid said unpleasantness.  The answer will not be: "Try this drag-free paper."  nor "Try this unslippery paper."  Rather, it will be: "You want a paper with some tooth."  or "You want a paper with a surface that's not as hard."

 

In short: we talk about the paper in terms if its attributes rather than our experience.  Our experience becomes either the thing to avoid or the thing to tweak or the thing to seek more of, but when we describe the paper itself, we do so by its attributes or properties.

 

I imagine that part of the reason is because those are the things described when we look at paper listings.  I never saw a paper listing include "glide" - but they often mention texture.

 

FWIW.

[TSherbs]

7 minutes ago, LizEF said:

 

Someone help me out of this paper vortex!

 

Close your FPN tab. Get outside! 

[A Smug Dill]

3 minutes ago, Tommaso Santojanni said:

I observe it from the end user's perspective.

As previously mentioned, I prefer to avoid overcomplicating matters and merely identify half a dozen characteristics that writers either value or tend to avoid.

 

Sorry, that makes no sense to me, because you cannot observe it from other writers' end user perspective; only they can do it for themselves.

[Tommaso Santojanni]

9 minutes ago, A Smug Dill said:

 

All you — as opposed to Liz — are doing there is to unilaterally and arbitrarily limit what may matter to some other individual. If there are 100 different components in a vector (v₁, … , v₁₀₀) that provides a description of an ink, and you find that only v₁ to v₅ matters to your experience and shed the rest from the lookup table documenting all distinctly identifiable inks in scope of the project, then you're denying other users of the model and/or dataset a say and the opportunity to decide that, to them  v₄ to v9 are what matter most.

That would only complicate the list.

Ink displays but 7 principal attributes, and nibs 3 principal ones. Were paper to exhibit a hundred, then I would prefer to distil only the essential few.

My intention is merely to identify a clear, descriptive list of characteristics that matters most to writers, not a scientific or technical matrix. Of course, I would like if these characteristics could be measured but, this might not always be possible.

[TSherbs]

5 minutes ago, Tommaso Santojanni said:

I am interested in the user experience, not the factors or parameters that affect it.

 

Sounds like you should set up a poll here (and on Reddit?) about what categories of user paper experience they respond to (either positively or negatively) while using fountain pens on paper. This thread title prompts "experts," but actually this statement suggests a broader inquiry. After all, we are all experts on our own likes and dislikes.

[A Smug Dill]

3 minutes ago, LizEF said:

I never saw a paper listing include "glide" - but they often mention texture.

 

To “glide” would require applying force to overcome a threshold relating to the friction coefficient, so that lateral movement can commence; and only then could one then assess how much reaction force is “felt” by the user as transmitted back up the nib and pen to the user's hand. However, the normal force applied by the user and/or pen's weight pressing into the paper surface will change the friction encountered, especially if it starts to deform the paper surface and causing a larger contact surface area between the nib's tipping and the paper. The degree of lubrication provided by the ink used will also matter. The geometry of the nib tipping, and the material and structure of the tipping (e.g. Sailor's use of tipping material that contain microscopic bubbles/craters on certain nibs) will also affect the friction encountered. So “glide” cannot be an attribute of the paper alone.

[A Smug Dill]

6 minutes ago, Tommaso Santojanni said:

Were paper to exhibit a hundred, then I would prefer to distil only the essential few.

My intention is merely to identify a clear, descriptive list of characteristics that matters most to writers, not a scientific or technical matrix.

 

But that's exactly what I'm suggesting. Start with 100 factors if you can think of them, gather 200 different types of paper and record those 100 values for each type, then get 500 different users to try each type of paper and document/rate their user experience. Once you have all that data collected, then you have a starting point from which to analyse, with the end goal of distilling out which factors matter most to the most users in scope of the study.

 

Simplification of a model is not about reducing the effort required to study and produce it in the first place.

[Tommaso Santojanni]

6 minutes ago, A Smug Dill said:

 

Sorry, that makes no sense to me, because you cannot observe it from other writers' end user perspective; only they can do it for themselves.

I read my posts again, but I was unable to find where I am attempting to observe other's individual perspective. Would you point out where I made this error, so that I may correct it? I am merely attempting to define a short list, descriptive of the experiences that matter most to writers.

 

[Tommaso Santojanni]

1 minute ago, A Smug Dill said:

 

But that's exactly what I'm suggesting. Start with 100 factors if you can think of them, gather 200 different types of paper and record those 100 values for each type, then get 500 different users to try each type of paper and document/rate their user experience. Once you have all that data collected, then you have a starting point from which to analyse, with the end goal of distilling out which factors matter most to the most users in scope of the study.

Very well. As my thread seeks expert guidance, may I ask you to assist in distilling no more than half a dozen key characteristics, so that we may identify what matters most to writers? I should be grateful for your expert proposition.

[A Smug Dill]

2 minutes ago, Tommaso Santojanni said:

Would you point out where I made this error, so that I may correct it?

 

Exactly what I quoted before.

 

17 minutes ago, Tommaso Santojanni said:

I observe it from the end user's perspective.


As previously mentioned, I prefer to avoid overcomplicating matters and merely identify half a dozen characteristics that writers either value or tend to avoid.

 

You repeatedly try to make the (end result of the) exercise out to be applicable to more than just yourself, but you can only observe your user experience, not other/most/all writers'. If “the end user's perspective” covers more than just you, then you need to open up the study — and the number of parameters — as wide as possible, get as many in-scope users to document their experiences in as detailed a manner as possible, and from there start reductive analysis. You cannot just create or dream up a simple model and validly presume that it is the logically sound one or applicable to someone else.

[A Smug Dill]

6 minutes ago, Tommaso Santojanni said:

so that we may identify what matters most to writers?

 

I can't speak for others. That's the whole point. If “writers” are generic, then you need to get 100, or 1000, or 10000 writers to inform you of their experience and what matters to them individually, not just ask one or two, or even a dozen, “experts”. Writers are not robots, not computer systems, that can be understood by looking at their internal wiring or code.

[TSherbs]

51 minutes ago, Tommaso Santojanni said:

Ink displays but 7 principal attributes, and nibs 3 principal ones. 

From what data did you make these conclusions?  The exchange here with LizEF? (no offense, Liz) I am surprised how quickly you have reached these conclusions, unless perhaps you have been examining this question for longer elsewhere.

 

For example: With nibs, a big part of the user experience and preference is how long the nib is and how far back from the paper the section is rotated when the nib is in contact with the paper. The angle of the hand during writing and the distance available for large hands (or smaller, for small hands) is very important for much user experience and preference. Or how about the aesthetics of the shape, proportion, color, and stamping/etching on the nib (what we have to look at as we write)? How many people want to use what might be considered an unappealing nib? 

 

And for ink: What, say, about the odor of the ink? Many people have particular tastes and reactions to the various odor profiles of ink manufacturers. This is often discussed in these threads, with widely varying opinions.

 

 

[TSherbs]

I know you did not answer this question earlier, and you are not responding to my posts now, but IF you are asking these things to try to help direct Omas in setting up an ink and paper package of some kind, then you could ask us these questions differently and of course ask some retailers or others about successful premium packages that customers have responded well to. You might have just asked us what kinds of papers we have liked best for letter writing, and why.

 

Like I said, a poll might be useful that simply asks us to state our individual preferences for stationery, either formal or casual. I am sure, also, that there are several stationary/paper threads here already that explore this topic.

 

Or maybe this is just a curiosity project for you because you like simplified analytical spreadsheets. 

 

That is why I ASKED.

[TSherbs]

Co-relevant to the topic here (this is from another paper thread here at FPN). It even includes a brief (subjective) data table, for those so inclined....