Abstract
This paper briefly examines the nature of information available to people designing for the screen and proposes that applied research into factors that affect the legibility of text on screen is required. Comparisons of reading from paper and screen do not identify the optimal typographic conditions for reading from screen, and it may be more fruitful to abandon such comparisons. A series of experiments that investigate the effect of typographic layout on reading from screen are summarised. The description aims to be accessible to practitioners and therefore to provide a basis for informed design decisions. The inappropriateness of formulating simple guidelines is illustrated by the results of these experiments. Peoples' subjective views of what are the easiest layouts to read are not those read fastest.
This research was supported with a grant from Microsoft Corporation.
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Dyson, M.C., Kipping, G.J. (1998). Exploring the effect of layout on reading from screen. In: Hersch, R.D., André, J., Brown, H. (eds) Electronic Publishing, Artistic Imaging, and Digital Typography. RIDT 1998. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 1375. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/BFb0053278
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BFb0053278
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