Importance of stroke order?
 

I've had a lot of sources go on and on about the importance of stroke order when writing kanji. According to Heisig, the importance "cannot be overstated" and that just makes me wonder: how come? If you can write the kanji and it looks like it's supposed to, how and WHY does it matter what order you wrote it in?

If you write out of order, your kanji will probably still be legible, but it will look funny. Odd angles and proportions. Sometimes that makes very similar looking kanji quite confusing. Also knowing the order can be important later on if you get an electronic dictionary. Mine only works efficiently if I use the correct stroke order.

Experienced readers of Japanese can "see" stroke order. The "sarifs" will often point in the direction of where your next stroke will start, so if you are out of order, you can often see it in the writing.

It may not make a difference... If you are writing very slow, very carefully, and all while paying attention to balance and the like.
But if you write any faster, it will both become obvious that you are writing them in the incorrect order and possibly even become illegible.

With messier handwriting or quick writing that borders on "script" - it matters immensely. If you`re writing with the correct stroke order your pen can never leave the paper and still be totally legible, as the stroke order will leave a distinct pattern.

It`s really hard to explain, but does indeed make a huge difference in legibility. In some cases, with certain hiragana or katakana it may not matter (も being one that drives both me and my son crazy as it seems to defy the normal rule of stroke order... Plus everyone in the family writes it the "wrong" way)- but kanji is pretty unforgiving.

Exactly. If you write a Kanji out of order, in front of a Japanese person, he might not recognize it, even if it's correctly rendered. Not always. Not usually. But sometimes.

Stroke order also helps you remember how to write some of the more complicated characters. If you write it the same order every time, you're not going to miss a slash or dot here or there.

If you input Kanji with a touch screen, then stroke order is very important. Otherwise, who cares?

A lot of people do if you wanna know the truth.

This is a very accurate and well thought out answer.

I have studied Japanese and Chinese. I questioned stroke order a lot, but came to understand that it really is important. Not only can kanji look "off" if written with the wrong stroke order, but sometimes they become illegible.

But sometimes stroke order simply doesn't make sense.

For instance, when you write 十, you write the horizontal and then the vertical stroke, i.e. 一 and then l.

But when you write 田, after writing "n", you need to write the vertical stroke first, i.e. l > 7 > l > 一 > 一.

Also, when you write 過, you are supposed to write the radical at the end, i.e. write 咼 first and then the radical. But what difference will it make if I write the radical first?