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A Pilot Study Measuring the Relative Legibility of Five Simplified Chinese Typefaces Using Psychophysical Methods

Published: 17 September 2014 Publication History

Abstract

In-vehicle user interfaces increasingly rely on screens filled with digital text to display information to the driver. As these interfaces have the potential to increase the demands placed upon the driver, it is important to design them in a way that minimizes attention time to the device and thus keeps the driver focused on the road. Previous research has shown that even relatively subtle differences in the design of the on-screen typeface can influence to-device glance time in a measurable and meaningful way. Here we outline a methodology for rapidly and flexibly investigating the legibility of typefaces in glance-like contexts, and apply this method to a comparison of 5 Simplified Chinese typefaces. We find that the legibility of the typefaces, measured as the minimum presentation time needed to read character strings and respond to a yes/no lexical decision task, is sensitive to differences in the typeface's design characteristics. The most legible typeface under study could be read 33.1% faster than the least legible typeface in this glance-induced context. Benefits and limitations of the methodology are discussed.

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Cited By

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  • (2017)The Cost of Cool: Typographic Style Legibility in Reading at a GlanceProceedings of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society Annual Meeting10.1177/154193121360169861:1(833-837)Online publication date: 28-Sep-2017
  • (2016)Measuring Glance Legibility of Wearable Heads-Up Display Interfaces Using an Adaptive Staircase ProcedureProceedings of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society Annual Meeting10.1177/154193121360147060:1(2073-2077)Online publication date: 8-Sep-2016
  • (2016)Reading and Learning SmartfontsProceedings of the 29th Annual Symposium on User Interface Software and Technology10.1145/2984511.2984554(391-402)Online publication date: 16-Oct-2016

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  1. A Pilot Study Measuring the Relative Legibility of Five Simplified Chinese Typefaces Using Psychophysical Methods

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        cover image ACM Other conferences
        AutomotiveUI '14: Proceedings of the 6th International Conference on Automotive User Interfaces and Interactive Vehicular Applications
        September 2014
        287 pages
        ISBN:9781450332125
        DOI:10.1145/2667317
        Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than ACM must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected]

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        Published: 17 September 2014

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        Author Tags

        1. Automotive human machine interface
        2. Distraction
        3. Driver safety
        4. Font characteristics
        5. Legibility
        6. Psychophysics
        7. Simplified Chinese typefaces
        8. Typeface style

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        View all
        • (2017)The Cost of Cool: Typographic Style Legibility in Reading at a GlanceProceedings of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society Annual Meeting10.1177/154193121360169861:1(833-837)Online publication date: 28-Sep-2017
        • (2016)Measuring Glance Legibility of Wearable Heads-Up Display Interfaces Using an Adaptive Staircase ProcedureProceedings of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society Annual Meeting10.1177/154193121360147060:1(2073-2077)Online publication date: 8-Sep-2016
        • (2016)Reading and Learning SmartfontsProceedings of the 29th Annual Symposium on User Interface Software and Technology10.1145/2984511.2984554(391-402)Online publication date: 16-Oct-2016

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