You should not use characters that are difficult to distinguish in your ID.
Some combinations of characters, such as the letter 'O' and the letter '0,' are difficult to distinguish. Gajus Kouzinas, co-founder and CTO of the human resources matching platform Contra, wrote in a blog post that such ambiguous characters should not be used in IDs.
Understanding and avoiding visually ambiguous characters in IDs
Mr. Kuzinas listed the following combinations as being difficult to distinguish:
・'O' and '0'
In fonts where the number zero is not separated by a slash or dot, the capital letter O and the number zero can look very similar.
・'I', 'l' and '1'
The capital letter I, the lowercase letter L, and the number 1 may be indistinguishable in many printed materials.
・'5' and 'S'
In some fonts the number 5 and the capital letter S look similar.
・'2' and 'Z'
The number 2 and the capital letter Z are often confused in handwritten forms.
・'8' and 'B'
The number 8 and capital letter B can be confused in stylized fonts or with poor writing technique.
・'6' and 'G'
The number 6 and capital letter Z can be confused in certain fonts.
・'9', 'q' and 'g'
The number 9, lowercase Q, and lowercase G can also be confused in some fonts.
The above characters are displayed in various fonts as shown in the image below. There are some characters, such as '9qg', that appear to be distinguishable in either font, but Mr. Kuzinas says that it is difficult to distinguish them when written by hand, saying, 'Try writing them by hand once.'
If we exclude characters that are difficult to distinguish visually, the number of alphanumeric characters that can be used in an ID is 53. If you do not distinguish between uppercase and lowercase letters, the number is 23. If an ID is 5 characters long, and uppercase and lowercase letters are treated as the same, a maximum of about 6.44 million IDs can be created.
However, increasing the number of characters in the ID increases the total number of IDs exponentially. 'The question is, do we want to keep the length of the ID down even if it makes it harder to distinguish, or do we want to make the ID a little longer so that it's easier to distinguish?' says Kujinas.
Kuzinas prioritizes readability and prefers to use only the following characters:
[code]abcdefhijkmnoprstwxy347[/code]
It was also mentioned that if IDs are often transmitted by voice, consideration should be given to letters that sound similar, such as 'b' and 'p.'
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