Shorthand just because eg Pitman's, the outlines rely on the consonant sounds, so as you and Bob will know, when reading it back you fill in the dots in the words (almost literally, for the vowels!). Eg a word like "dog" would be represented by the signs for the consonantal sounds of "d.g".
So the words "phaonmneal pweor of the hmuan mnid" above are just "ph.n.m.n.l p.w.r of the h.m.n m.nd" ie ignore the vowels and it becomes much easier to read. Not all the words are in consonantal order, but most of them are, it seemed to me.
I tend to read by word shapes ... I see varying heights of spikes ... church towers and fields ..
